Seminar 06 – Open Access Comes of Age

Steve Anderson is the author of Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past, co-Editor of the interdisciplinary online journal Vectors and creator of the fair use advocacy site Critical Commons. A scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, culture and technology, his research interests include the theory and history of emerging technologies, documentary and experimental film and video, and interactive media design.

After graduating with a PhD in Optical Physics from Aberdeen University, Pete Binfield began his publishing career at Institute of Physics Publishing in Bristol, UK as a Commissioning Editor in their books program. From IoPP, he moved to Kluwer Academic Publishers (KAP) in the Netherlands, where he ran their Major Reference Work program (encyclopedias and handbooks) and then held a variety of positions at KAP, including the management of the Physical Sciences group (Physics, Materials Science, Chemistry) and the directorship of the Plant Sciences and Earth & Environmental Sciences division. KAP merged into Springer Publishers, and during that period he held a position in Business Development, working on projects such as e-books, e-reference works and the Springer Open Choice program. In 2005 he moved to the US to live in California and work for SAGE Publications running their successful US Journals Division (some 220 journals across medical and social sciences). Since April 2008, Peter has been running PLoS ONE, and in September 2009 he also took on overall responsibility for the PLoS Community Journals.

Starting in 1994 the American Physical Society has consistently moved in small steps towards the implementation of Vision 2020, with Bob and his team playing a lead role. Starting with the recognizing of eprints as a legitimate element of the Physics process through the launching of pure and hybrid OA journals up to recent announcements of Creative Commons Licensing, permitting reuse, including commercial reuse, of select APS articles.

Bloomsbury Academic , a new imprint of Bloomsbury Publishers, recently appointed Frances as Publisher. This new venture makes all their research-led publications available online free of charge on Creative Commons licences and pioneers new business models. Frances is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. She has acted as consultant to Creative Commons and is now conducting a research project on alternative licensing practices in developing countries. Previously she was the Publishing Director at the Soros Foundation.

In the role of VP and Director, Open Access for Wiley’s STM business, Rachel is responsible for the strategic direction and development of Wiley’s open access initiatives. Rachel joined Wiley in 2007 as Publisher for life sciences journals. Prior to that she spent 7 years at Nature Publishing Group in sales and publishing roles.