1. Open Access policy

Our journal has adopted and applied the Budapest Open Access Policy Initiative.

Budapest Open Access Policy Initiative

An old custom and a new technology were combined for a better public benefit. The old custom stands for the scientists that publish their works in the academic journals free of charge, at their own request, while the new technology stands for the internet. The worldwide distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature is of public interest; it enables a completely unrestricted and free access to the scientific literature for the scientists, researchers, teachers or students. Removing the barriers that prevent people accessing the scientific literature leads to an easier reach to the research, a better education development, a better knowledge share from the rich people to the deprived ones and from the deprived to the rich people. This leads to a scientific literature that is as useful as possible and to more united people in a common intellectual vision and information seeking environment.

This kind of free Open Access journal has limited the journal’s literature to a small section for several reasons. Despite this limited collection, the open Access journal has proven to be much more economical. The open Access gives extra power to the readers to find the literature articles and to benefit from them; it provides a new broad and assessable environment for the authors’ visibility; also increases the number of readers and the effect to them. We call on all interested institutions and individuals to help ensure these achievements, make the rest of the literature accessible and remove the barriers ahead, especially the price barrier. The benefits of the open Access will begin to show and increase as soon as the number of supporters of this initiative increases.

The academic literature should be freely accessible by everyone and the scientists should not have any payment expections. This category includes, first of all, the peer-reviewed journal articles; however the preprint of nonpeered-reviewed studies published by authors whose colleagues share a feedback or the research results are also included in this category. There are many levels and types of wider and easier access to the scientific literature. The open access in this declaration has the meaning of “no financial, legal and technical internet barriers for the scientific literature, which can be accessed, saved, copied, printed, scanned, linked to the full text, indexed, transferred as data to software and used for any legal purpose”. Restriction on duplication-distribution and the copyright rules in this field should be given for the authors to check the integrity of their own work so that they can be properly recognized and cited.

Although peer-reviewed journal is freely available for the online readers, open Access journal publishing doesn’t come without a cost. However, experience shows that the overall costs in an open access journal are much lower than the traditional forms of distribution. Open Access provides an opportunity to save money while expanding the scope of information dissemination. After all, there is a strong relationship between profession, universities, libraries, foundations and other institutions to embrace open Access for the improvement of their services. Materializing the open Access requires new cost sharing models and financing mechanisms, but significantly reducing the total cost of distribution is an achievable target, not necessarily just an utopic or preferable indication.

We recommend using two complementary strategies to provide the open Access for the scientific journal literature:

I. Personal archive: First, scientists need help and tools when placing their peer-reviewed journal articles in open electronic archives. When these archieves are coherent with the standards of Open Access Initiative, search engines and other tools can treat separated archieves as a single one. Thus, users don’t need to know which archives exist or where they are located, in order to find archives and benefit from their content.

II. Open Access Journals: Second of all, scientists need a tool/method to start publishing their works in the new generation open access journals, or journals that choose to switch to open access. Since journals need to reach the widest possible audience, copyrights will not be invoked to limit the access use of the published material in these new journals. In the process that follows, copyrights and other tools will be used to ensure the open Access permanence of all published articles rather than preventing them. These new journals do not charge accessibility or subscription fees, which would prevent the Access to the journal and to afford the costs they choose other methods. In order to achieve these goals, there are many alternative sources of funding like: research funded by foundations and government grants, universities and laboratories employing researches, donations made by departments and institutions that support the research, open Access supporters, profits from the annexe to the main text, funds from the closing or canceling of the journals with a subscription and Access fee or even the funds coming from the researchers themselves. Not all scientific departments or governments have to accept any of these solutions; we should not give up any other different and creative alternative.

Our goal is an open access peer-reviewed journal literature. (I) Personal archiving and new generation (II) Open Access journals are a way to achieve this goal. As well as having direct targeting tools, they also bring academics together without waiting for the market or legislation changes. In addition to supporting the two startegies mentioned above, we also encourage experimenting with more ways to move from existing distribution methods to open Access. Flexibility, experimentation and adaptation according to regional conditions are the best ways to ensure rapid, safe and long-lasting progress in different environments.

Open Society Foundation was found by George Soros and it is dedicated to provide resources and essential aid that raise awereness. The foundation uses its resources and influence to promote expansion and personal archiving, the publication of new open Access journals and the economic viability of an open Access journal system. While commitment and resources of the open society foundation are important, this initiative also needs other intitutions/organizations’ strengths and resources.

We invite the governments, universities, libraries, journal editors, publishers, foundations, intellectuals, Professional organizations and scientists to share our vision and views, help us with the removing of open access barriers and build a free education and research environment across the world.

14 February 2002

Budapeşte, Hungary

Leslie Chan: Bioline International

Darius Cuplinskas: Director, Information Program, Open Society Institute

Michael Eisen: Public Library of Science

Fred Friend: Director Scholarly Communication, University College London

Yana Genova: Next Page Foundation

Jean-Claude Guédon: University of Montreal

Melissa Hagemann: Program Officer, Information Program, Open Society Institute

Stevan Harnad: Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, Universite du Quebec a Montreal

Rick Johnson: Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

Rima Kupryte: Open Society Institute

Manfredi La Manna: Electronic Society for Social Scientists

István Rév: Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives

Monika Segbert: eIFL Project consultant

Sidnei de Souza: Informatics Director at CRIA, Bioline International

Peter Suber: Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College & The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter

Jan Velterop: Publisher, BioMed Central

https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/translations/turkish-translation

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