Harvard Faculty Adopts Open-Access Requirement

Vooch writes "Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy this evening that requires faculty members to allow the university to make their scholarly articles available free online." I may not be smart enough to go to college, but at least I can pretend to have a Harvard eduction. I don't think that will be enough to get a gig as a Simpsons writer.

Comments

Do you mean education?

[mysqlbytes]

A Harvard eduction?? Some of us learn english proper!

Re:Do you mean education?

[sm62704]

You didn't supply a link.

Nice of Them

[Mickyfin613]

Considering Harvard University's staggering $34 billion stockpile...

Re:Nice of Them

[dkleinsc]

Yeah, silly idea for a university to use their endowment to promote research (including this measure as well as their numerous grants), drop tuition for lower income students to improve learning, or recruit top-notch faculty. (in the interests of disclosure, I'm one of the few members of my family without a Harvard degree of some sort)

You'd almost think their purpose was promoting the advancement of human knowledge.

Re:Nice of Them

[poliopteragriseoapte]

This has nothing to do with Harvard's finances. In any case Harvard does not make money out of scholarly publications.

This is a coup against publishers, the likes of Elsevier and Springer. What Harvard is saying is that, as a condition of sponsoring research at Harvard, the results MUST be accessible in open form. Hence, when faculty transfer the copyright of their papers to the publishers (a step that happens each time a paper is published), a clause will have to be added that Harvard reserves the right to make the works available in an open access way.

This is great, and other universities are thinking the same (but acting with less courage).

This leaves open the point of why one must transfer copyright when publishing papers -- why would a license to use the content not be enough? But traditionally, faculty and researchers have been slaves to publishers. Harvard's decision is a sign that the balance of power is changing, due to the internet.

Faculty members can publish in any journal that...

[mhore]

Ok, that's fine and well that if the journal allows it, Harvard makes a copy of the article freely available. What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this. Does this mean that Harvard faculty will not publish in Nature and Science? Somehow I doubt that. Does this mean that Harvard will break copyright agreements? Maybe? The article doesn't quite say.

Not a bad idea

[KublaiKhan]

One of my major frustrations is how it's very difficult to find serious scholarship outside of a certain number of journals, all of which require expensive subscriptions. It severely limits my ability to make a point on, say, evolutionary biology if I cannot cite and link to a peer-reviewed paper on said subject.

Hopefully, we'll be able to see some more of this sort of thing in the future.

Re:Not a bad idea

[KublaiKhan]

I posit that education is everyone's concern. Is it not my responsibility, for instance, if I see a janitor about to pour bleach into an ammonia bottle, to let him know that that may not be the best of ideas? If not out of a desire to ensure his safety and the safety of others, then out of a desire not to get chlorine poisoning myself?

We provide, in the western world, a basic education free of charge to everybody. This is in order to impart basic life skills that everybody needs in order to contribute successfully to our society.

Does it need to stop there? Are you only allowed to learn inside a classroom? How absurd! Rather than restricting education to a cloistered few, is it not in the best interests of humanity to allow everybody to learn what they will, should they have the desire to learn?

Or are you hinting that you'd like to pay for my college tuition? I'd be mightily obliged; my email's in my profile if you'd like to make the arrangements that way.

Re:Not a bad idea

[nasor]

"Expensive" doesn't even begin to cover it. A subscription to the Journal of the American Chemical Society - which you pretty much must have if you want to do serious chemistry research - was $3165 last time I checked. And that was for online access only! These prices aren't "expensive," they're insane. Especially when you consider that the journals don't pay anything for the papers that they publish.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[mhall119]

I think their theory is that journals that don't allow this will have to change their policy, as they wouldn't want to lose out on publishing articles from Harvard profs.

Eduction?

[timelorde]

... but at least I can pretend to have a Harvard eduction.

I was all set to make a snide comment about the esteemed Mr. Taco's spelling and/or typing abilities, perhaps combined with a Billy Gates Harvard dropout reference, but then I Googled "eduction":

Eduction

*Sigh* I am NOT smarter than a fifth grader.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[TheGoodSteven]

I study criminology and a large portion of studies that are found in scholarly journals are funded by government grants. A stipulation to getting that grant money is that the study is offered online for free. What often happens is that the same author writes two papers using the same data. The two papers will be about the same study, will arrive at the same conclusion, but the paper offered for free simply doesn't state that it is peer reviewed.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[proxima]

Ok, that's fine and well that if the journal allows it, Harvard makes a copy of the article freely available. What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this. Does this mean that Harvard faculty will not publish in Nature and Science? Somehow I doubt that. Does this mean that Harvard will break copyright agreements? Maybe? The article doesn't quite say.

My understanding of this system is that it's opt-out rather than opt-in. Faculty members retain the copyright to their papers if they're included in the archive, and they have to right to remove them from the archive (opting out). Publishing to many (most?) journals entails signing over the copyright of the final form of the paper to the journal.

It seems entirely conceivable that some journals will require Harvard profs to remove the article from the archive as a condition for publication. On the other hand, in some fields it's common for "working paper" versions of a paper to circulate widely before they are officially published. Official publication does not usually entail the removal of these working paper versions. I suspect that this is part logistical (it's hard to revoke something that's been made available free on the web), part non-competing (the final version of the paper tends to be more polished and you'll almost certainly prefer citing it over the working paper version), and part publicity (it's easy to find working papers, and if you really like it you'll seek out the published version, serving as advertising).

So basically, this archive can serve as a working paper repository for Harvard profs. They don't need to put it up on their own web page or have a website in their field dedicated to it, so hopefully this will make it even more convenient to have research available freely on the web.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[kebes]

What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this. Well Nature Magazine actually does allow you to publish even if you've put the article on a pre-print server (see this blog post that explains their editorial policy). In fact, Nature runs their own pre-print server called Nature Precedings, so they are obviously preprint-friendly. In fact, a large number of journals are preprint-friendly (about 2/3 of all journals, according to TFA). Although many journals are not yet supportive for open access (I can't find a preprint policy for Science Magazine), the trend is clearly towards allowing preprint archiving.

Does this mean that Harvard will break copyright agreements? According to TFA:

The new policy will allow faculty members to request a waiver, but otherwise they must provide an electronic form of each article to the provost's office

So evidently they will make it possible for authors to publish in more restrictive journals if necessary. But the overall push towards open access is clear.

My guess is that within a few more years, all the journals will be preprint-friendly. After all, the journals need the authors more than the authors need them. Any journal that refuses to allow these kinds of policies will find it difficult to attract high-profile publications in coming years.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[kripkenstein]

Ok, that's fine and well that if the journal allows it, Harvard makes a copy of the article freely available. What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this. Does this mean that Harvard faculty will not publish in Nature and Science? Somehow I doubt that. Does this mean that Harvard will break copyright agreements? Maybe? The article doesn't quite say. Actually the article does say:

The new policy will allow faculty members to request a waiver, but otherwise they must provide an electronic form of each article to the provost's office, which will place it in an online repository. In other words, to publish in journals that do not allow open access, the authors will simply need to request a waiver. Presumably this will be a minor bureaucratic matter. But note that even if a journal isn't 'open access', many such journals let authors do what they will with "author's versions" of the article (or the journals just ignore the practice). Such a version lacks the journal's formatting and so forth. So there might not be a problem here at all.

Overall this is a very good move. The default will now be to publish articles openly, at least "author's versions". Yes, some authors might request the waiver to not do so, but this applies pressure on them and the journals. Very nice, Harvard, hopefully others will follow you soon.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[immcintosh]

You call it Harvard arrogance, I call it a noble effort. They have a strong hand, and I think they have every ethical right to attempt to enforce a more open atmosphere of knowledge in the face of academic journals which seem to be working contrary to that end.

Whether anything comes with it is another matter, but I'm glad they're trying.

Eduction

[Radon360]

eduction transitive verb

1. to bring out
2. deduce

Maybe everyone who attends Harvard has an eduction ceremony before they leave?? I just hope whoever ends up to educting their scholarly articles uses a better method of spell checking. :-P

It's *BIG*!

[hawk]

The importance of this *cannot* be understated.

Junior faculty, in particular, are currently *forced* to publish in the "best" journal they can, with the bulk of those being the "sign it over" variety. To publish in a lesser journal is to risk tenure.

Now, suddenly, the University is providing a new list of top journals, and tenure will come from posting to the rest of those.

The academic publishing industry is a dinosaur in desperate need of elimination. It charges tens of thousands of dollars per school for journals that would be more useful as web sites--, not and available several months earlier. As it exists, journals are for the benefit of the publishing companies, not the world at large, academia, or the authors. The economic model is that the faculty write, are paid nothing, and the libraries pay huge fees to the publishing houses.

Will the publishers react to open up? I doubt it; they can't.

The *real* result of this will be top articles going to online journals, which will first rival and then displace the printed journals. This is a good thing for everyone except the publishing houses.

hawk, formerly junior faculty but now back in practice and paid well enough that *his* kids can go to school, too

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[aztektum]

It reminds me of the argument put toward the "MAFIAA": Adapt to a new way of doing business or die.

I don't see why Science or Nature should get a pass.