Harvard Faculty of Arts & Sciences Adopt Open Access Self-Archiving Policy
Chuck Bailey in the February 2008 issue of Current Cites wrote this summary about a mandate approved recently at Harvard:
Guterman, Lila. “Celebrations and Tough Questions Follow Harvard’s Move to Open Access”, The Chronicle of Higher Education (21 February 2008) — The adoption of an open access mandate by Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has received worldwide notice, but it is likely to have an especially strong impact in the U.S. Here’s an excerpt from the mandate: “The Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms, the permission granted by each Faculty member is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean or the Dean’s designate will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written request by a Faculty member explaining the need.” Guterman reports on reactions to the mandate, noting that publishers’ criticisms have been “muted.” As you would expect, Open Access News has extensively covered this development, and it is the best place to get further information (especially see the February 10, 2008 and February 17, 2008 OAN archives). — CB
More Information
- At Harvard, a Proposal to Publish Free on Web (NYT, Feb. 12, 2008)
- The Case for Open Access (Harvard Crimson, 12 Feb. 2008)
- OA Self-Archiving Policy: Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences
- Harvard Adopts 38th Green Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate
- Open Access Archivangelism
- Library Journal Academic Newswire interview with Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton, concerning Open Access (published February 26th & 28th)
Both comments and pings are currently closed.