The impact of the global movement of open access (OA) on OA publishing for Canadian government science researchers

Open access (OA) has been an enabling and accelerating factor for a more open scientific discovery process. In March 2011, the Government of Canada announced its commitment to Open Government along three streams: open information, open data, and open dialogue. The tenth anniversary statement of the Budapest Open Access Initiative has also encouraged many academic institutions to adopt and implement OA policies and best practices. This case study explores the global OA movement’s impact on researchers from federal science departments and agencies. The authors will assess whether mandates in OA and Open Science (OS) initiatives have led to a growth of Open Government resources and how the availability of open publications contributes to research impact assessment and impacts researchers at all stages of their careers. The authors use the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection to locate OA publications by federal government scientists and citation trends among the OA types. WoS and InCites Benchmarking & Analytics are used to compare the growth of OA publications against key dates identified by the OA movement and Canada’s OS initiatives. Science librarians and information professionals are increasingly well versed in how OA opens up new areas of activity and accelerates innovation across disciplines. However, our knowledge of OA publishers of high impact in science disciplines, and experiences with federal S&T activities reporting and publishing through OA are limited. We hope to develop an enhanced understanding of the current OA landscape and the requirements for a government research system that supports OA and OS.