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    University Of Luxembourg Jumps Into Open Access
    By News Staff | May 14th 2012 01:33 PM | 2 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments

    The University of Luxembourg has agreed to actively participate in the Open Access initiative.  Defined in the Budapest (2002), Bethesda (2003) and Berlin (2003) declarations on Open Access, it is an effort to make scholarly publications freely available to the public - because the content creator pays for publication, rather than a corporation underwriting the cost and retaining copyright while charging a subscription fee for access.

    Through the signature of a collaboration agreement with the University of Liège (ULg), the University of Luxembourg hopes to inspire its researchers to use a pay-to-publish journal in order to attain the success that the ULg has achieved with ORBi , its digital repository: in just under 6 years, researchers at ULg have entered over 78,700 references, 60% with full-text. As stated in 2011 by Bernard Rentier, Rector of ULg: “ Today ORBi is the most active institutional repository of its type in the world.”  

    In March 2012 alone, ORBi registered more than 104,000 consultations and more than 48,000 publication downloads.

    This collaboration agreement will, through the transfer of knowledge and experience, strengthen the ties between the Universities, both partners in the University of the Greater Region project.  It will, above all, provide the University of Luxembourg with its own digital repository, ORBi lu .

    Primary research via search engines

    The benefits of open access and repository tools are numerous. Besides the preservation aspects, it will increase access to what UL researchers are doing by making their scientific work more visible and more widely read and used.  By putting in place its own repository, ORBi lu , the University of Luxembourg hopes to significantly increase the worldwide impact of its scientific production and, in particular, to increase the number of citations of articles published by its researchers.

    This increased visibility will open up, as well, new partnering opportunities. Once ORBi lu is in place - planned for the first quarter 2013 - the results of research performed at the University of Luxembourg will be available via a simple online search.

    Comments

    We, the University of Luxembourg, would like to correct what we perceive as errors in the above article. The University of Luxembourg is not endorsing the pay-for-publication business model. We are endorsing the Green Road to Open Access which is the deposit of published articles in our soon-to-be available digital repository, ORBilu. As stated in our original press release (http://wwwen.uni.lu/university/news/latest_news/university_of_luxembourg...), the University of Luxembourg hopes to inspire its researchers to publish in Open Access, through deposit in a digital repository, in order to attain the success that ULg has achieved with ORBi, its digital repository.

    We also do not agree with this statement “because the content creator pays for publication, rather than a corporation underwriting the cost and retaining copyright while charging a subscription fee for access” as, Open Access is not about the content creator paying for publication. It is about ensuring that the reader encounters no barriers when trying to read and use scientific publications. This can be achieved in multiple ways and, what we are promoting here at the University of Luxembourg, is depositing in a digital repository, not paying for publication.

    Beth Park
    University of Luxembourg
    http://wwwen.uni.lu/

    Beth Park (not verified) | 05/15/12 | 03:59 AM
    Hank
    It would seem to be a linguistic nuance - you're attributing the worst motivation to print journals and the best to open access ones, which is not really true.  They both involve money and it comes from someone.  In a subscription model, the reader pays for publication. In an open access model, the scientist pays for publication. Someone is still paying.   One of the four cornerstones of Science 2.0 in the future will be actual open publication, where no one has to pay to read or publish.  Media corporations in print say their work improving the science costs money and open access corporations say the same thing, except slightly less.

    Free-to-read is clearly a wonderful waypoint on the road to open publication - it proved Science 1.0 did not have a stranglehold on research. Just curious; since a repository alone will not get researchers citations, how will you encourage your scientists to get seen, if you aren't endorsing open access or subscription models?
    —
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    Hank Campbell | 05/15/12 | 09:57 AM