Completion Report for the Arctic Council Open Access Archive as of September 2015. Next Steps.

Abstract

At the June 2015 SAO Executive meeting, the SAOs instructed the ACS and the six working groups to complete the work on the Open Access repository by September 2015. During the summer, the Open Access Archive project has progressed and the archive now houses the vast majority of all the significant reports from all six of the Arctic Council working groups and all the central reports from AC task forces. In addition, documents from all past SAO meetings which have previously been made publicly available from the Arctic Council website are also being uploaded to the OA Archive. The ACS and the working groups have also agreed on a technical procedure for how to submit new, future reports which should be included in the archive and how to inform each other about necessary updates to previously uploaded reports. Finally, in order to ensure that everyone can use the reports for free for educational purposes as intended it is necessary to improve clarity on copyright restrictions and licenses for use of Arctic Council reports. The ACS has drafted two suggested disclaimers, which could be used in connection with the OA Archive. The first disclaimer is intended for all reports and documents published up to and including the 2015 Iqaluit Ministerial Meeting and the second for all future documents. To ensure that these disclaimers are appropriate and legally robust they will need legal approval before they can be implemented on Arctic Council products and in the OA repository. The ACS is working with the WGs, the chairmanship and the host country to arrange a process for such a legal approval. The aim is to have agreement on a final disclaimer ready in time for the completion and printing of deliverables for the 2017 Ministerial meeting.