ISCB Public Policy Statement on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Research Literature

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is dedicated to advancing human knowledge at the intersection of computation and life sciences.On behalf of the ISCB members, this public policy statement expresses strong support for open access, reuse, integration, and distillation of the publicly-funded archival scientific and technical research literature, and for the infrastructure to achieve that goal.Knowledge is the fruit of the research endeavor, and the archival scientific and technical research literature is its practical expression and means of communication.Shared knowledge multiplies in utility because every new scientific discovery is built upon previous scientific knowledge.Access to knowledge is access to the power to solve new problems and make informed decisions.Free, open, public, online access to the archival scientific and technical research literature will empower citizens and scientists to solve more problems and make better, more informed decisions.Attribution to the original authors will maintain consistency and accountability within the knowledgebase.Computational reuse, integration, and distillation of that literature will produce new and as yet unforeseen knowledge.We strongly encourage open software, data, and databases, issues which are not addressed here.A prior ISCB public policy statement on sharing software provides very clear support for Open Source/Open Access (http://www.iscb.org/iscb-policy-statements/software_sharing).We support open database access, standards, and interoperability.We also recognize that databases are complex dynamic entities, with ongoing roles and needs that cannot be treated properly within this statement.