STM Produces Initial Voluntary Principles for Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks

STM, the global voice of scholarly publishing, have opened a public consultation to find out how everybody wants to share scientific content, hoping to engage the feedback and thoughts of the whole scholarly community.

Representatives from a collection of organisations, including Digital Science, have drafted a set of initial Voluntary principles which is not intended to be prescriptive, but will be open to public consultation – here’s a snippet from the official press release:

“To gain a better understanding of the current landscape of article sharing through scholarly collaboration networks and sites, STM is undertaking an open consultation across the scholarly community. The aims of this consultation are to facilitate discussion by all stakeholders, to establish a core set of principles that maximize this experience for all. Our goal is that publishers and scholarly collaboration networks work together to facilitate sharing which benefits researchers, institutions, and society as a whole. To initiate the consultation, STM has drafted a set of ‘Voluntary principles for article sharing on scholarly collaboration networks’.  Stakeholders are invited to provide feedback and share their views. Suggested questions for submissions are outlined in the section below. Organisations and individuals are also invited to formally express support for these principles. We envision that this is the first step in an ongoing collaborative process, and invite a wider representation of the scholarly community to help identify and action future steps”

From today until 10th April 2015, the consultation aims to kick-start discussion and to gain a better understanding of the current landscape of article sharing through scholarly collaboration networks and sites.

Other representatives from the organisations below have been involved in the drafting of the initial Voluntary principles document. Many of these organisations are expected to formally support the initial Voluntary principles in the days and weeks to come:

• AAAS
• American Chemical Society
• American Institute of Physics
• AIP Publishing
• Digital Science
• Elsevier
• IEEE
• John Wiley & Sons
• Nature Publishing Group
• Springer
• Taylor and Francis