[OAI-general] OAIster terms/conditions

[Leslie Carr]

On 23 Sep 2009, at 22:12, Peters, Dale wrote:
> An alternative to the systematic commercialisation of Open Access  
> data is the formal constitution of COAR: the Confederation of Open  
> Access Repositories, scheduled to take place in Open Access Week  
> 2009. http://www.driver-repository.eu/DRIVER-COAR.html
>
Apart from the fact that "systematic commercialisation" is a bit of an  
exaggeration, can you explain exactly how a repository organisation is  
going to provide "an alternative" service model?  Surely building  
other services is the alternative? Shouldn't there be a "Confederation  
of Open Access Services" ????
> Emerging as the sustainable outcome of the DRIVER infrastructure,  
> COAR is a community-driven approach, where institutions can  
> determine how they want their repositories to be deployed.
>
Institutions already determine how they want their repositories to be  
deployed. It is true that the majority of them don't publish policies  
for metadata and data reuse (according to data from OpenDOAR), so that  
state of affairs should be improved upon.
> The action plan is directed towards international organisational  
> support for Open Access in research infrastructures around the globe.
>
I applaud this but it is (according to the website) COAR's *second*  
goal set. Its first goal set is to maintain the DRIVER confederation.  
Does this mean that COAR is a membership club whose first allegiance  
is to its own continued existence? Will membership drives will be the  
first thing on the agenda and where membership marketing and advocacy  
will take priority over OA marketing and advocacy?
--
Les
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