[IP-OA_Forum] Fwd: [open-science] access2research - help spread the word!

Ulrich Herb <u.herb@scinoptica.com> · Mon, 21 May 2012 11:26:52 +0200

liebe liste,

zur info und mit der bitte um weitere verbreitung.

viele grüße

ulrich herb

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: 	[open-science] access2research - help spread the word!
Datum: 	Mon, 21 May 2012 10:23:18 +0100
Von: 	Jenny Molloy <jenny.molloy@okfn.org>
An: 	open-science@lists.okfn.org

Dear open-science

Following on from William Gunn's message earlier, please see a message
from John Wilbanks and the access2research team below - they are aiming
to generate a big splash this Monday and you may have got an inkling of
what was coming through #OAMonday tweets, but it's arrived and they need
your help!

This message contains more info on social media links and handles than
the earlier one so do use them if you can and get the word out there.

Best wishes

Jenny

--------------------------------------------------------------

On *Monday, May 21*, we lodge a petition on the White House’s “We the
People” page asking the Obama administration to require that all
federally funded research be posted on the Web – extending the principle
of the NIH policy to all federal agencies.

1. What We’re Asking

· Publicity/ Call for Participation.  Please help line up publicity for
the petition before Monday.  Specifically, can you help get it on the
front pages of Reddit, Tumblr, Wikipedia, Boing Boing, and send out an
all-hands-on-deck request through your own blogs/twitter feeds, etc?

· 25,000 signatures in 30 days gets an official Administration response.
  We want to hit that number fast to escalate this issue inside the
White House.  We believe the policy has support but is stuck.  This
could well be the event that gets it through.

· Please sign the petition on Monday.

2. Social Media links/handles

The official campaign website is at http://access2research.org
<http://access2research.org/> and there are already Facebook pages
(http://facebook.com/__access2research
<http://facebook.com/access2research>) and Twitter handles
(@access2research) in place.

3. Petition Text (800 character limit)

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: [This doesn't count toward the
character count]

Require free access over the Internet to journal articles arising from
taxpayer-funded research.

We believe in the power of the Internet to foster innovation, research,
and education. Requiring the published results of taxpayer-funded
research to be posted on the Internet would give access to
entrepreneurs, researchers, patients, caregivers, and students, who
currently are blocked by high costs. We know this works without
disturbing the process of scientific publishing because the National
Institutes of Health is already doing it through its highly successful
Public Access Policy. All other federal agencies that fund research
should have similar policies.

President Obama, please act now to make federally-funded research freely
available to taxpayers on the Internet.

4. The Ask to Others

To sign the petition:

-   Have to be 13 years or older
-   Have to create an account on whitehouse.gov
<http://whitehouse.gov/>, which requires giving a name and an email
address and then clicking the validation link sent to that address
-   Click to sign

5. Further Context

After years of work on promoting policy change to make federally-funded
research available on the Internet, and after winning the battle to
implement a public access policy at NIH, it has become clear that being
on the right side of the issue is necessary but not sufficient. We've
had the meetings, done the hearings, replied to the requests for
information.

But we're opposed in our work by a small set of publishers who profit
enormously from the existing system, even though there is no evidence
that the NIH policy has had any measurable impact on their business
models. They can - and do - outspend those of us who have chosen to make
a huge part of our daily work the expansion of access to knowledge. This
puts the idea of access at a disadvantage. We know there is a serious
debate about the extension of public access to taxpayer funded research
going on right now in the White House, but we also know that we need
more than our current  approaches to get that extension made into
federal policy.

The best approach that we have yet to try is to make a broad public
appeal for support, straight to the people. The Obama Administration has
created a web platform to petition the White House directly called We
The People. Any petition receiving more than 25,000 digital signatures
is placed on the desk of the President's Chief of Staff and must be
integrated into policy and political discussions. But there's a catch -
a petition only has 30 days to gather the required number of signatures
to qualify.

We can get 25,000 signatures. And if we not only get 25,000, but an
order of magnitude more, we can change the debate happening right now.

Next week we will publish our petition and the 30 day cycle begins. What
we're asking you to do is to leverage your personal and professional
networks to get the word out.

You can do this in any way that makes you feel comfortable. A blog post,
an email to constituencies, a tweet, a facebook share, you name it -
something that tells thousands of people "I support this petition, I'm
signing this petition, and I thought you should know about it too."
Because this isn't just slacktivism with a "like" or a retweet - people
need to go to the White House website, enter their name and email
address, and hit the button.

Qualified signers must be 13 years old or more, and have a valid email
address. That's all.

The goal is not just to get 25,000, but to get far more to show the
White House that this issue matters to people, not just a few publishers.

We are launching the campaign on Monday May 21. The petition will go
live late Sunday night May 20, so that the waves can start in the EU and
sweep west with the sunrise. We're asking you to turn on your networks
on Monday morning.

Thanks for considering this. If we can all come together to get the word
out at once, and stay behind it for 30 days, we have a real chance to
get access to taxpayer funded research across the entire government, and
send a signal that the people have a voice in this debate, not just
publishers and activists.

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