What has been happening in the world of Open Access in the last week (or two)? The Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology (FIRST) Act was introduced into the United States House of Representatives. Section 303 of the FIRST Act would be a leap backwards for open access to United States federally funded research articles.

Rex Crossley Awards The Open Access Button is now award winning! On March 8, the Open Access Button was awarded the Rex Crossley Award — Best Project.

What has been happening in the world of Open Access in the last week? Building Button 2.0: The Open Access Button from Co-Lead David Carroll for PLoS Blogs. PLoS’ new open data policy was announced in December.

The Open Access Button is a browser bookmarklet that lets users report when they are denied access to research, then search for alternative access to the article. Each time a user encounters a paywall, they simply click the Button in their bookmark bar, fill out an optional dialogue box, and their experience is added to a map alongside other users. Then, the user receives a link to search for free access to the article.

The Open Access Button has been growing the last few weeks and has now mapped over 5,500 paywalls! We’re also nearing 2,000 Twitter followers and 1,000 likes on Facebook. Thank you to all our users and supporters for reporting each paywall that you hit and sharing the Button with your friends and colleagues. Expanding the Button Now we’re focusing on a bigger, better Button.

What has been happening in the world of Open Access in the last week (or two)? In the world of the Open Access Button, we are developing Button 2.0. Do you have something you’d like to see in the next version? Let us know in our consultation survey! We are also looking for new student volunteers to join our team to support the project’s expansion.

The Open Access Button is a browser bookmarklet that tracks and maps the impacts of paywalls. Users can report when they are denied access to research and then search for alternative access to the article using the Button. We launched the Open Access Button in November 2013 at the Berlin 11 Student and Early Stage Researcher Conference. To date the Button has mapped over 5000 paywalls.

We launched the Open Access Button in November at the Berlin 11 Student and Early Stage Researcher Conference. To date there have been over 5000 paywalls mapped.

What has been happening in the world of Open Access in the last week (or two)? “Open Access is inevitable,” said Dutch State Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, Sander Dekker at the Academic Publishing in Europe 2014. Dekker also highlighted the Open Access Button and other open access projects. Listen to his talk here. Cultural Anthropology is now fully open access with its February 2014 issue!

Open Access Button Co-Lead Joe McArthur gives the weekly video update for January 13–19. This week Joe talks about consultation, integrating the Button with Wikipedia, implementing referral codes, and our plans for February.

This has been a great week for the Open Access Button (OAB). The beginning of 2014 has put the Open Access (OA) movement in a historic perspective, great goals have been accomplished and, as Hilda Bastian pointed out in her review: Open access 2013: A year of gaining momentum [caption id=“attachment_364" align=“alignleft” width=“210"] Open Access Button[/caption] The Open Access Button has certainly caused impact in the Open Access context.