A PubMed search for "coronavirus" limited to the past 10 years then limited 
again to free full-text yields results of 55% free full-text. With no date 
limit, it's 46%.

This search will get at research on COVID and the next most relevant research, 
all the other coronaviruses (mers, sars, common cold), and will be helpful for 
researchers and medical practitioners anywhere.

China's early release of the COVID genetic code and even traditional publishers 
scrambling to make COVID resources free is demonstrating that people get at 
least some of the points of open access and open research.

It would be interesting to compare publisher responses today with earlier 
epidemics. If I recall correctly, there is a significant change from responding 
to pressure to proactively making resources free without OA pressure.

This is progress. It's not 100% OA but a lot more researchers and practitioners 
have free access to a lot more of our knowledge than was the case with the 2003 
Sars epidemic.

Further pressure might be helpful. Identification and analysis of the 45% 
PubMed results that are coronavirus but not free full-text would identify 
suitable targets for gentle pressure. Some such articles may have been written 
by authors covered by an OA policy. Such a results list would likely yield 
journal lists and individual articles, many of which could be deposited in 
repositories thanks to the efforts of green OA advocates.

Librarians and others working from home can send e-mails to authors and it 
should be possible to add items to repositories remotely. Publishers who are 
green not gold should ideally work with PMC and can also send e-mails to 
authors reminding them of the green policy.

Although research on coronavirus is urgent, university researchers who are also 
teachers are likely swamped due to a sudden shift to online teaching this 
semester. For this group, it might make sense to time communication after the 
semester ends.

Just some ideas...


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org

heather.morri...@uottawa.ca

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

[On research sabbatical July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020]
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