Qualche mese fa, la Commissione Europea aveva indetto una consultazione pubblica per l’accesso all’informazione scientifica nell’età digitale (brutta traduzione di EC public consultation on scientific information in the digital age).
Da oggi, sono disponibili i risultati, qui (pdf a colori, 72 pagine: non lo volete stampare).
Vi copio le conclusioni:
Access to digital scientific information: scientific publications
Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89 %) and limited library budgets (85 %) were signalled as the most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1 000 respondents (90 %) supported the idea that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even higher number of respondents (91 %) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific publications. Self-archiving (‘green OA’) or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing (‘gold OA’) were identified as the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving (‘green OA’), what the desirable embargo period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56 % of
respondents (although 25 % disagree with this option).Access to digital scientific information: research data
As for the question of access to research data, the vast majority of respondents (87 %) disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement that there is no access problem for research data in Europe. The barriers to access research data considered very important or important by respondents were: lack of funding to develop and maintain the necessary infrastructures (80 %); the insufficient credit given to researchers for making research data available (80 %); and insufficient national/regional strategies/policies (79 %). There was strong support (90 % of responses) for research data that is publicly available and results from public funding to be, as a matter of principle, available for reuse and free of charge on the Internet. Lower support (72 % of responses) was given for data resulting from partly publicly and partly privately funded research.Preservation of digital scientific information
Responding to the question asking whether preservation of scientific information is at present sufficiently addressed, 64 % of the respondents disagreed or disagreed strongly. The main barriers signalled in this area were: uncertainty as to who is responsible for preserving scientific information (80 %); the quality and interoperability of repositories (78 %); and the lack of a harmonised approach to legal deposit (69 %).
Per la cronaca, dall’Italia sono arrivati 95 contributi, quarto paese per numero di risposte (prima la Germania con 422, poi Francia e UK, con 129 e 127). Nel nostro piccolo, abbiamo risposto anche come Wikimedia Italia, e ci fa piacere vedere confermato il netto orientamento dei risultati verso un accesso più libero, ampio e completo ai frutti della ricerca scientifica.
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