I had been waiting for the draft plans in response to the Feb, 2013 White House Directive on Open Access to be released, so we might see what affect the plans would have on our own planning for our institutional repository, the UTDR, as well as to plan educational and support programs. Word is that the draft plans were required to be submitted to the White House by August 22, 2013, but not made public necessarily, until they go through internal review and revision. But there is some indication from those who are close to the process that most of the 23 agencies that are affected are considering most seriously an interagency repository or utilizing the existing NIH repository, PubMed Central. This may be a bit of a surprise for all of us, in that the mandate to accomplish open access without additional funding suggested that reliance on outside facilities, such as those proposed by the publishers (CHORUS) and University libraries (SHARE), would prove useful. Apparently not so much, at least not with respect to journal articles. Maybe with data.
All of this is speculation at this point, however. I guess that’s all we’ve got right now.
