WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 – The World Bank today announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.
The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
“Knowledge is power,”World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more.”
The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.
The World Bank will be adopting an Open Access Policy as of July 1. In addition, the Bank recently launched the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) and became the first major international organization to adopt a set of copyright licenses from Creative Commons. As a result, a wealth of Bank research and knowledge products are now freely available to anyone in the world for use, re-use, and sharing.
Why is this so significant?
How can open access contribute to the goal of eliminating poverty?
How does the new policy impact the Bank's researchers and authors?
How will the OKR benefit users of Bank knowledge, in particular those in developing countries?
Join us in person at the World Bank or online for a lively conversation about these and other aspects of open access to research, and its potential for development progress.
FEATURED GUESTS:
Peter Suber Director of the Harvard Open Access Project and a leading voice in the open access movement
Cyril Muller Vice President for External Affairs at the World Bank
Michael Carroll American University law professor and founding board member of Creative Commons
Adam Wagstaff Research Manager of the World Bank's Development Research Group
Over 11,000 academics have pledged to boycott Elsevier, the Dutch publishing giant, for profiting off their work and making it unavailable to the general public. Now Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is about to turn the world of corporate academic publishing on its head, in the same way that his website effectively took down Encyclopedia Britannica.
Elsevier is part of the Anglo-Dutch company Reed Elsevier, which had 2010 revenues of $9.3 billion and annual profits of over $1.67 billion. It publishes over 250,000 articles in some 2,000 journals a year that range from global publications like the Lancet to more specific ones like the Journal of the Egyptian Mathematical Society.
Publishers like Elsevier knew they were onto a good thing because before the arrival of the Internet, there was no other way for researchers to tell their peers about the important work they were doing, or vice versa. Plus getting published in a respectable journal was also the key to keeping academic jobs and getting promotions, so the researchers and professors – like rock musicians and best-selling writers – were leery about giving away their work for free.
“(P)ublishing companies became the de facto gatekeepers to scientific knowledge, restricting who could see the latest ideas rather than allowing ideas to spread as far as possible,” writes Aloke Jha in the Guardian.
As a result of the viral video on electoral reform out of my briefing to the Occupy NYC working group on electoral reform, a number of stakeholders got in touch with me. Others I have identified via searches for major civil society elements with defined electoral reform programs.
Below are the ones I have identified. They can also be seen, with their logos, at Directory of Activist Individuals & Organizations (USA). I welcome nominations for others to be added to this list, and I must say up front, that while some of these were quick to give me their inputs for the Act itself, all of them, without exception, have failed to respond to my letters seeking their assistance in moving toward a Statement of Demand being read publicly soon, ideally on President’s Day.
Ballot Access News The long-standing and comprehensive monitor for all ballot access news.
Center for Democracy & Election Management (American University) The mission of the Center for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM) is to provide education, research and public engagement on the full range of democracy issues in the United States and around the world.
Center for Election Science We are a nonpartisan not-for-profit organization made up of engineers, mathematicians, and voting theorists. We educate the public based on our study of voting theory. Voting theory looks at the way votes are expressed and calculated.
Center for Voting and Democracy FairVote acts to transform our elections to achieve secure access to participation for all, a full spectrum of meaningful ballot choices and majority rule with fair representation. As a catalyst for change, we build support for innovative strategies to win a constitutionally protected right to vote, universal voter registration, a national popular vote for president, instant runoff voting and proportional voting.
Citizens in Charge The organization works with activists, legislators, media, opinion leaders and voters to protect the initiative and referendum process where it exists in 26 states and to expand the process to the 26 states where voters currently lack that right.
Committee for a United Independent Party We are a national strategy, communications, and organizing center working to connect and empower the 40% of Americans who identify themselves as independents.
Common Cause We stand up for ordinary people, root out corruption in the halls of power, and lead a true citizen’s movement to fight for a government that works for all of us—not the special interests.
Constitution Party Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits.
Electoral Knowledge Network The ACE network promotes credible, and transparent electoral processes with emphasis on sustainability, professionalism and trust in the electoral process.
Free and Equal Elections Foundation The Free & Equal Elections Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit public policy advocacy group dedicated to election reform and improving ballot access laws in the United States.
Free Speech for People This Amendment to the U.S. Constitution will put an end to the ridiculous idea that corporations are people.
Green Party We stand for democracy, social justice, and both ecological and economic sustainability.
League of Women Voters We work to educate and register voters, and to improve elections and government.
Libertarian Party We are the third largest party in the USA. We believe all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property.
National Committee for Voting Integrity In keeping with the goal of public election administration we are working to ensure that election systems preserve the secret ballot, accuracy, privacy, integrity, and the proper tabulation of the voter’s intent regardless of his or her physical condition, language of origin, or literacy ability.
People for the American Way Thousands of eligible Americans still experience challenges at the polls in part due to an organized effort to disenfranchise voters.
Public Campaign ($) Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.
Reform Party We stand for ethics and reform across the electoral system and government to include a reformed tax system, a balanced budget, and the promotion of jobs for citizens.
Verified Voting Foundation Computer and network security experts are virtually unanimous in pointing out that online voting is an exceedingly dangerous threat to the integrity of U.S. elections. There is no way to guarantee that the security, privacy, and transparency requirements for elections can all be met with any practical technology in the foreseeable future.
Wikipedia / Electoral Reform Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results.
Congress shall work toward a Constitutional Amendment that places Election Integrity outside the power of the government. That amendment, whose terms shall be formulated via the National Initiative for Democracy (National Ballot Initiatives). It might include but not be limited to such initiatives as: 1. Elimination of personhood for any organization
2. Affirmation of universal voter registration
3. Abolishment of the Electoral College
4. Balanced Budget
5. Termination of the Federal Reserve
6. Constraint on size and budget of the US Government
7. Re-enfranchises convicts who complete their sentences
NOTE: DC Statehood does not require Constitutional Amendment.
As with all of the other elements (this makes eleven in all), this one is still subject to crowd-sourcing and perhaps a mix of Citizen Wisdom Councils and National Ballot Initiatives.
My bottom line is that the eleven element together are more than able to attract, unify, and mobilize 100 million voters who can “occupy” the home offices of their Senators and Representatives and DEMAND, as a condition for NOT beginning recall actions against each of them, that this bill be introduced, passed into law, and signed by the President before 4 July 2012.
Time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced. In my view 2012 has the potential to be a transformation year, but only if We the People mobilize, unify (Reform Coalition), and demand in unison–publish and read across the land a Statement of Demand, while insisting that each Member sign a Pledge as the price of being allowed to remain — on probation — as an incumbent.
All proposed legislation without exception be published on line, normally one month prior to vote but no less than 24-72 hours for emergencies, to include explicit geospatial pointers for all “earmarks” each of which must be publicly announced.
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“Put enough eyeballs on it, no bug is invisible.” America — as with other countries, but most in contradiction with our Founding Fathers’ intent — has been “ruled by secrecy,” not only from the financial world, where banks counterfeit credit they do not have to earn interest they do not merit, but also in Congress, where secrecy, obscure language, and blatant corruption have combined to make every law a corrupt law, generally containing earmarks that are not in the public interest, but result in the sponsor of that earmark receiving a 5% bribe (the standard “fee” on Capitol Hill for delivering an earmark).
What this really means is that the public treasury is being discounted 95%, and given away for so many things across the military, energy, health, and agricultural sectors, to name just four, that the public is a loser twice: first in having corrupt Members who divert five percent of the public treasury to their own “need” for huge war chests to fund their campaigns, and second in having corrupt Members who sponsor one another’s earmarks despite the fact that at least half the money is known in advance to be fraud, waste, and abuse–this is true, for example, of the Pentagon budget, where 1% of that budget pays for the 4% of the force that takes 80% of the casualties — the other 99% of the Pentagon budget goes to contractors, and I feel very confident in suggesting that half of that 99% or 44.5%, is fraud, waste, and abuse.
By mandating publish posting of all legislation in advance, we make it possible for alert citizens to enforce integrity on their individual Members.
Qualifying candidates will receive public funding in equal amounts. Political campaign committees are made illegal and lose their public charters. For the purposes of this Act corporations are not people and may not contribute nor cause to be contributed, any campaign funds. Issue advocacy and advertising are not tax-deductible. Air time and media print space for all candidates is free and equal.
Gerrymandering is outlawed. It will be replaced by any combination of compact computer drawn districts using open source software and/or citizen wisdom councils selected from jury duty pools, and/or at-large districts. All gerrymanders in progress in 2011 are stopped by this Act and replaced by tightly-drawn districts. In light of the 1:1 representation provided by national referendums, no increase in the number of Representatives is necessary.
