BOAI/Section4

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4.1

 * We should do more to make publishers, editors, referees and researchers aware of standards of professional conduct for OA publishing, for example on licensing, editorial process, soliciting submissions, disclosing ownership, and the handling of publication fees.
 * Editors, referees and researchers should evaluate opportunities to engage with publishers and journals on the basis of these standards of professional conduct.
 * Where publishers are not meeting these standards we should help them improve as a first step.
 * As one means for evaluating a new or unknown OA publisher or OA journal, we recommend that researchers consult the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and its code of conduct.
 * Members of the association are screened according to this code.
 * Complaints about OASPA-member publishers and suggestions for improving the code of conduct should be sent to OASPA.
 * We encourage all OA publishers and OA journals to apply best practices recommended by OASPA or to seek membership in the association, which would entail a review of their practices and an opportunity to amend these where necessary.

4.2
We should develop guidelines to universities and funding agencies considering OA policies, including recommended policy terms, best practices, and answers to frequently asked questions.

4.3

 * We encourage development of a consolidated resource where it is easy to follow the progress of OA through the most relevant numbers and graphics.
 * Each bit of information should be updated regularly, and its provenance or method of computation clearly indicated.

4.4

 * The OA community should act in concert more often.
 * Wherever possible, OA organizations and activists should look for ways to coordinate their activities and communications in order to make better use of their resources, minimize duplication of effort, strengthen the message, and demonstrate cohesion.
 * We should create better mechanisms for communicating and coordinating with one another.
 * We should reach out to our academic colleagues, to the academic press, and the mainstream non-academic press.
 * The academic and non-academic media are better informed about OA, and more interested in it, than at any time in our history.
 * This is an opportunity for helping to educate all stakeholder groups about OA and new proposals to advance it.

4.5

 * The worldwide campaign for OA to research articles should work more closely with the worldwide campaigns for OA to books, theses and dissertations, research data, government data, educational resources, and source code.
 * We should coordinate with kindred efforts less directly concerned with access to research, such as copyright reform, orphan works, digital preservation, digitizing print literature, evidence-based policy-making, the freedom of speech, and the evolution of libraries, publishing, peer review, and social media.
 * We should look for ways to amplify our separate voices when defending common principles.

4.6
We need to articulate more clearly, with more evidence, and to more stakeholder groups the following truths about OA: Back to INDEX
 * OA benefits research and researchers, and the lack of OA impedes them.
 * OA for publicly-funded research benefits taxpayers and increases the return on their investment in research. It has economic benefits as well as academic or scholarly benefits.
 * OA amplifies the social value of research, and OA policies amplify the social value of funding agencies and research institutions.
 * The costs of OA can be recovered without adding more money to the current system of scholarly communication.
 * OA is consistent with copyright law everywhere in the world, and gives both authors and readers more rights than they have under conventional publishing agreements.
 * OA is consistent with the highest standards of quality.