MIT To Make All Faculty Publications Open Access

Death Metal writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "If there were any doubt that open access publishing was setting off a bit of a power struggle, a decision made last week by the MIT faculty should put it to rest. Although most commercial academic publishers require that the authors of the works they publish sign all copyrights over to the journal, Congress recently mandated that all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health retain the right to freely distribute their works one year after publication (several foundations have similar requirements). Since then, some publishers started fighting the trend, and a few members of Congress are reconsidering the mandate. Now, in a move that will undoubtedly redraw the battle lines, the faculty of MIT have unanimously voted to make any publications they produce open access."

Comments

Hats of for MIT

[unity100]

now that's the kind of university that one would want his/her children to go to.

Re:Hats of for MIT

[eln]

Yes, because I would have been devastated to see my kids attend MIT before this.

Re:Hats of for MIT

[frosty_tsm]

As opposed to the comp sci major unwashed stereotype? :-)

My experience has been that there are different tiers. Schools within a given tier are going to have comparable program quality (but one's style might match you better). Generally speaking, going to any school within the top 50 or 100 for a field will result in a good education. Also, some schools are higher in their ranks because of their research. However, graduate students benefit from this far more than undergrad students do.

I will say this, though. Being in the real world with a lot less college debt is nice.

Finally

[Vornzog]

This is a major blow to an industry with an outdated business model. Scientific publication is starting to move beyond the need for the middleman, and I am extremely glad to see it happen.

That said, the major publishers will scramble to try and patch this hole in the business model, and they will probably make the overall situation worse before it really starts to improve.

Oh well. Got to start that process at some point. Go MIT.

Re:Finally

[Samschnooks]

This is a major blow to an industry with an outdated business model. Scientific publication is starting to move beyond the need for the middleman, and I am extremely glad to see it happen.

That said, the major publishers will scramble to try and patch this hole in the business model, and they will probably make the overall situation worse before it really starts to improve.

Oh well. Got to start that process at some point. Go MIT.

Nothing personal to you, sir or madame. I see "outdated business model" time and time again on Slashdot as an euphemism for basically saying "not offering something for free".

First of all, business models do not become outdated. They may become worthless because someone has started doing business another way that eliminates one from making money from their current way of doing business. For example, in the beginning of the Internets, folks were charging for content. Then, someone had the brilliant idea that they don't have to charge and they'll have advertising. Thereby making most sites who charged the consumer for the content "outdated" and thereby making everyone else lose money. Then again, tell that to these guys

Now consider this, many folks are becoming independent contractors and doing crafts and whatnot at home to make a living - just like the pre-19th century factory system. Outdated indeed.

There's no such thing as an outdated business model. MIT is financing these publications by other means, that's all. Also, exactly how much does it really cost to publish this stuff online? The authors aren't paid. What are the costs associated? I don't think this is such a sacrifice for MIT or any other institution that does this.

Darned Liberals

[OldFish]

They're setting America on a path to certain destruction. Why how's a good, god-fearing businessman gonna make a buck if he can't do it by reselling publicly funded publications???

I think the businessmen have tried to close public access to NOAA data too.

Re:Thank you!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Hey, what about authors that have an interest in surrendering their copyright, paying page fees, being threatened if they dare post a copy of their own paper on their website, and doing peer review for free for for-profit journals?

What about them, huh? Are they not people too?

Re:Unanimous?

[EvilDrew]

The vote was unanimous at the March 18th faculty meeting: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/open-access-0320.html

Re:This is going to hurt smaller research groups a

[langelgjm]

I'm quite happy with the current system, warts and all -- we pay the journals to do the insanely laborious task of filtering through all the submissions and providing us with a reasonable subset that represent (with some measurement error) the most salient works.

Do you? Or do you pay journal to organize unpaid reviewers to determine the quality of submissions, and to cover the cost of distribution? Because I thought that most reviewers and editors don't get paid.

The point is that now distribution costs can be close to nil, but subscription prices keep increasing. I don't see why an open-access journal that was not affiliated with a commercial publisher could not accomplish the same thing, and maintain the quality of articles. The "imprimatur" will simply no longer come courtesy of a commercial publisher - the brand name, e.g., "Well-Respected Journal of X" can persist. After all, it is not the publisher that provides the quality, but the editors and reviewers.