A Shot Heard ‘Round the Academic World: Harvard FAS Mandates Open Access
In a historic measure, the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in February unanimously approved a motion that compels Harvard researchers to deposit their “scholarly articles” in an open access (OA) repository to be managed within the library and to be made freely available to anyone via the Internet. Faculty members, however, can opt-out of compliance by obtaining a waiver, a point some OA advocates say could potentially undermine the policy’s effectiveness. Nevertheless, the Harvard vote provided a resonant “shot heard ’round the world” for the open access movement.
“This is a large and very important step,” said Stuart Shieber, professor of computer science at Harvard, who put forth the motion. “It should be a very powerful message to the academic community that we want and should have more control over how our work is used and disseminated.” In a statement released following the vote, Shieber cited serials costs that have “risen to such astronomical levels,” forcing cancellations and “reducing the circulation of scholars’ works.”
Specifically, the Harvard motion resembles a publishing contract of sorts; it compels faculty to give Harvard non-exclusive, irrevocable permission to distribute their articles online, which Harvard intends to do, as well as permitting others to use the works as well, as long as those uses are non-profit. 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.” Faculty members retain their copyrights in the articles, subject to the university’s license and are free to publish in other journals. The legislation does not apply to articles completed before adoption of the motion, and does not apply to Harvard’s professional schools.
Curiously, the policy also, “when preferable,” allows faculty to opt-out of compliance. All one has to do, is ask. “The policy specifies that a waiver of the license for an article will be granted by request of the faculty author,” Shieber told the LJ Academic Newswire. “This is in keeping with the principle that the policy should serve the faculty, and faculty members are in the best position to determine that in individual cases.”
Critics, however, including OA pioneer Stevan Harnad, questioned whether “potential author resistance to perceived or actual constraints on their choice of which journal to publish in,” could hamper the policy—in other words, if the most prestigious journal in a researchers’ field requires exclusivity, will that be enough to motivate a researcher to opt-out?
Valid questions, among many others, that will surely be examined in practice: the motion provides for an analysis of the legislation’s effectiveness, with a report to be delivered in three years. “There are of course many details of implementation still being worked on,” Shieber told the Newswire. “In general, these will be worked out under the principle of serving the faculty best in the distribution of their scholarly writings.”
Following suit, the Harvard Law School unanimously voted to mandate OA on May 7th.
From Harvard Law School Press Release:
In a move that will disseminate faculty research and scholarship as broadly as possible, the Harvard Law School faculty unanimously voted last week to make each faculty member’s scholarly articles available online for free, making HLS the first law school to commit to a mandatory open access policy.
“The Harvard Law School faculty produces some of the most exciting, groundbreaking scholarship in the world,” said Dean Elena Kagan ’86. “Our decision to embrace ‘open access’ means that people everywhere can benefit from the ideas generated here at the Law School.”
Under the new policy, HLS will make articles authored by faculty members available in an online repository, whose contents would be searchable and available to other services such as Google Scholar. Authors can also legally distribute the articles on their own websites, and educators here and elsewhere can freely provide the articles to students, so long as the materials are not used for profit.
“This exciting development is something in which the whole Harvard Law School community can take great pride,” said John Palfrey ’01, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and newly appointed vice dean of library and information resources. “The acceptance of open access ensures that our faculty’s world-class scholarship is accessible today and into the future. I look forward to the work of implementing this commitment.”
The vote came after an open access proposal was made by a university-wide committee aimed at encouraging wider dissemination of scholarly work. Earlier this semester, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to adopt a policy similar to the Law School’s new initiative.
Similar initiatives are underway to promote free and open access to scholarly articles elsewhere, although no initiative extends as far as Harvard’s. Legislation before Congress would mandate that all federally funded research be available in open access.
Library Journal Academic Newswire, Feb. 14, 2008
Harvard Law School Press Release, May 7, 2008
