Timeline 2008

This list is part of the Open Access Directory.


 * This is a section within the larger Timeline of the open access movement.


 * January 2, 2008. The New York University Libraries launched the OA Afghanistan Digital Library.


 * January 10, 2008. The European Research Council released the text of its OA mandate, which it adopted December 17, 2007.


 * January, 10, 2008. The Swiss Academy of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften or SAGW) adopted an OA policy recommending (not requiring) that authors self-archive or submit their work to OA journals, and that journals and publishers use CC licenses or deposit their articles in an OA repository.


 * January 11, 2008. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) released the text of its OA mandate.


 * January 16, 2008. New Zealand provided OA to the nation's statutes.


 * January 17, 2008. Creative Commons released a draft of the CC-Zero waiver.


 * January 18, 2008. Google announced that it will soon launch a research data repository to provide OA to multi-terabyte sized datasets, integrated with tools for visualization, annotation, and user comments.


 * January 21, 2008. The pro-business Committee for Economic Development released another report supporting OA (its second since April 2006) for publicly-funded research.


 * January 22, 2008.  Italy's Instituto Superiore di Sanità (National Institute of Health, or ISS) adopted an OA mandate.


 * January 22, 2008. The University of California - Berkeley launched a pilot program to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals.


 * January 23, 2008. Australia's Charles Sturt University adopted an institutional OA mandate.


 * February 4, 2008. The University of Michigan reached the milestone of posting 1 million books online for free online access.


 * February 5, 2008. SPARC launched a new mailing list for discussing author rights. The list is moderated by Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer for Duke University Libraries.


 * February 8, 2008. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) endorsed OA models for exchanging software and knowledge.


 * February 12, 2008. The Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously adopted an OA mandate for their research articles.


 * February 14, 2008. The University of Oregon Faculty Senate adopted a resolution encouraging faculty to use an author addendum to retain the right to self-archive.


 * February 15, 2008. Ireland's Health Research Board issued a Position Statement in Support of Open and Unrestricted Access to Published Research.


 * February 19, 2008. Scotland's Queen Margaret University adopted an OA mandate


 * February 21, 2008. The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet) adopted an OA policy urging faculty to publish in OA journals or deposit their work in an OA repository.


 * March 10, 2008. MIT and Elsevier offer Free Content from more than 2,000 journals


 * March 13, 2008. France launched Gallica 2, offering more than 60,000 free online books digitized from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and about 2,000 from about 50 private-sector publishers.


 * March 19, 2008. The Open Data Commons project released version 1.0 of its Public Domain Dedication & Licence.


 * March, 20, 2008. eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) called for collaboration on OA projects from like-minded organizations in the 47 developing and transition countries in which it operates.


 * March 20, 2008. Purdue University endorsed the CIC author addendum.


 * March 25, 2008. Richard Crocker launched Planet eBook, a new portal of OA books in the public domain.


 * April 7, 2008. The US National Institutes of Health Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research (requirement policy) takes effect.


 * April 9, 2008. Stirling University adopted an OA mandate.


 * April 11, 2008. The University of Southampton adopted a university-wide OA mandate.


 * April 15, 2008. Sweden's University College of Borås has adopted an OA policy encouraging faculty to deposit their journal articles in the institutional repository, Borås Academic Digital Archive (BADA)


 * April 24, 2008. SPARC Europe and the Directory of Open Access Journals launched their Seal for Open Access journals program.


 * April 31, 2008. Peter Suber and Robin Peek launched the Open Access Directory.


 * May 1, 2008. The Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) adopted an OA mandate


 * May 7, 2008. Harvard Law School joined the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in adopting an OA mandate.


 * May 15, 2008. The University of Oregon Faculty Senate adopted a resolution encouraging faculty to use an author addendum.


 * May 22, 2008. The Canadian Library Association approved a Position Statement on Open Access for Canadian Libraries.


 * June 5, 2008. The University of Helsinki adopted an OA mandate.


 * June 10, 2008. The Autonomous Community Government of Madrid adopted an OA mandate, requiring the results of the research it funds to be deposited in any of Spain's "e-ciencia" OA repositories


 * June 13, 2008. The UK's Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) launched the Digital Repositories e-Science Network (DReSNet).


 * June 27, 2008. The European Science Foundation (ESF) and EuroHORCs issued a joint statement recommending OA mandates to European funding agencies.


 * June 29, 2008. The Stanford University School of Education (SUSE) adopted an OA mandate, by a unanimous faculty vote.


 * June 30, 2008. The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) adopted an OA mandate.


 * July 16, 2008. The National Research Council Canada adopted an OA mandate.


 * July 25, 2008. The NIH has released the author addendum (or "cover sheet") it requires when NIH employees publish articles based on NIH-funded research


 * July 29, 2008. The Agence Nationale de la recherche (ANR) - Humanities and Social Sciences adopted an OA mandate, requiring its grantees to deposit their peer-reviewed manuscripts in HAL-SHS, the humanities and social sciences section of HAL


 * July 29, 2008. Boston University’s Superfund Basic Research Program began providing OA to its research results


 * August 11, 2008. The European Commission funded more digitization for OA, calls on member states to do the same.


 * August 24, 2008. The European Commission launched an experimental OA mandate for 20% of its 2007-2013 research budget.


 * August 24, 2008. Ireland's Higher Education Authority adopted an OA mandate.


 * August 28, 2008. Macquarie University adopted an OA mandate. The vote in the University Council was unanimous.


 * September 6, 2008. OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks), a project to publish OA monographs in the social sciences and humanities, officially launched.


 * October 7, 2008. Springer bought BioMed Central and became the world's largest OA publisher. See the joint press release.


 * October 8, 2008. The participants in the Open Access and Research Conference 2008 (Brisbane, September 24-25, 2008) issued the Brisbane Declaration.


 * October 14, 2008. The First International Open Access Day was celebrated.


 * October 14, 2008. The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) officially launched.


 * October 17, 2008. ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)- Zürich adopted an OA mandate.


 * October 24, 2008. Fonds de la recherché en santé Québec.  Policy regarding open access to published research outputs takes effect.


 * November 13, 2008. Autism Speaks (AS) adopted an OA mandate for AS-funded research.


 * November 19, 2008. The European Digital Library Foundation launched Europeana, an OA Digital Library.


 * November 19, 2008. ENCES (European Network for Copyright in support of Education and Science), an organization dedicated to the adoption of OA-friendly copyright laws in Europe, officially launched.


 * November 25, 2008. The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (Nasjonalt kunnskapssenter for helsetjenesten, NoKC) adopted an Institutional Policy for Open Access to Scientific Publications.


 * December 4, 2008. The Temple University required OA for all its doctoral dissertations.


 * December 24, 2008. The MAPAI formed to launch first Open Access Journal of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (OAJMAP).