
How are recent developments in scholarly communication affecting open access?
Funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust are now implementing policies supporting open access publication, requiring authors to ensure that research is available to all. A summary of the various research funding bodies can be found here.
Research Councils UK have released their position statement recognising the importance of open access and encouraging authors to follow their funding bodies regulations, to make research accessible, and also to follow copyright regulations at all times. Some research councils will be mandating deposit of works funded by them into open access repositories from October 2006 onwards.
Open access is an area that is in constant flux and one that is being constantly debated by interested parties, including both researchers and publishers. The Open Access News blog is a good resource to find out what is going on.