Open Access Week 2010
This global event is currently underway -now in its 4th year. According to the official OpenAccessWeek website, this year (again) there are hundreds of events taking place at universities and research institutions from many parts of the world. A list of selected events is available at: http://www.openaccessweek.org/events
While many will agree that there is still a “long” way to go for a real OA movement, the following three examples are definitely good examples of the benefits of OA:
SciVee | Making Science Visible, a mashup of traditional open-access content with rich media; the image below is an example of an article where users can view both the text document and a video with further explanation of the work. This project was initiated in 2007, more details about this great initiative is available at: http://www.scivee.tv/about
Link to Article
OMICS Publishing Group, provides access to many publications in multiple format -including audio files. The image below is an example of how users can choose the format to access, this type of customization is also a good example of web accessibility.
Link to Journal of Cancer Science and Therapy
452º F, this “new” journal is providing translation to its publications in four languages: English, Spanish, Catalan, and Basque.
Multi-lingual journals will definitely have the potential to minimize the information divide; although it must be an expensive service, the investment will definitely help to increase the impact and readership to scholarly content. An example is available at: http://www.452f.com/
Finally, the above cases are just examples of many described in the Open Access Week blog, feel free to browse around and …it’s great to see some of these OA initiatives already in place.
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