Open Access Meeting Reflections—SPARC 2012

Ten years after the movement was launched through the Budapest Open Access Initiative, open access (OA) is thriving, flourishing, and becoming a core element in the broader “Open Knowledge” movement that includes Open Educational Resources (OER), Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), Open Data, and Open Science among others, all of which share the common goals of providing free, unrestricted access to different types of information and knowledge.

This year’s Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Open Access Meeting was an opportunity to reflect on the progress of OA over the past 10 years; discuss recent battles over proposed legislation that would undermine and set back OA, including the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the Research Works Act (RWA); and most importantly, focus on current and emerging issues. Presentations and discussions implicitly focused on taking OA from its infancy to the next level of maturity—discussions were no longer about how to make the case for OA to researchers, but rather, how do we further advance, support, and assess the impact of OA in a bolder, broader way within the global information ecosystem?

The SPARC Open Access Meeting was held March 12-13, 2012. in Kansas City, Mo. More than 200 people attended to discuss a host of OA themes including policy issues, author rights, OA publishing, and repositories...