Sergio Graziosi posted on April 11, 2012 16:40
From 1 July 2012, all World Bank research outputs and knowledge products will be made open access. The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution's two journals - World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER) - which are published by Oxford University Press. While much of the Bank's research outputs and knowledge products have been available for free on the institution's web site, and on other channels, the new Open Access policy means that for the first time, the Bank will have an aggregated portal to research and knowledge products where the metadata is curated, the content is discoverable and easily downloaded, and third parties are free to use, reuse, and build on it.
The Open Knowledge Repository, the centrepiece of the policy, is the new home for all of the World Bank's research outputs and knowledge products. The Repository - available at openknowledge.worldbank.org - currently contains works from 2009-2012 (more than 2,100 books and papers) across a wide range of topics and all regions of the world. This includes the World Development Report, and other annual flagship publications, academic books, practitioner volumes, and the Bank's publicly disclosed country studies and analytical reports. The Repository also contains journal articles from 2007-2010 from the two World Bank journals WBRO and WBER. The Repository will be updated regularly with new publications and research products, as well as with content published prior to 2009. Starting in 2013, the Repository will also provide links to datasets associated with research. While the vast majority of the works are published in English, over time translated editions will also be added.