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.

Do you mean education?

[mysqlbytes (908737)]

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

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[LMacG (118321)]

That's unpossible!

Re:Do you mean education?

[sm62704 (957197)]

You didn't supply a link [uncyclopedia.org].

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[AndGodSed (968378)]

Nah, don't need it. I speak Engrish good.

Eduction

[Radon360 (951529)]

eduction [merriam-webster.com] 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

Nice of Them

[Mickyfin613 (1192879)]

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

Re:Nice of Them

[dkleinsc (563838)]

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 [cnn.com] 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.

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[BeeBeard (999187)]

If they don't throw us crumbs like this every once in while, then we lowly commoners might get uppity and demand they put an end to their unfair admissions practices [harvard.edu] or something.

Re:Nice of Them

[poliopteragriseoapte (973295)]

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.

Springfield

[sm62704 (957197)]

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.

You mean Springfield's Springfield Alderman Simpson? [illinoistimes.com]

Faculty members can publish in any journal that...

[mhore (582354)]

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.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[mhall119 (1035984)]

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.

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[Mr. Underbridge (666784)]

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.

Ah, good old fashioned Harvard arrogance. Let's see how long this lasts. In my field, the number of decent journals I can think of that allow open access and reproduction could be counted on the fingers of one hand. After playing with a live hand grenade.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[immcintosh (1089551)]

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.

It's *BIG*!

[hawk (1151)]

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

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[Cal Paterson (881180)]

Yeah, whatever. Maybe it is arrogance but they're doing what is the right thing and they expect you to deal with it. It's what any moral principle is; worth fighting for.

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[thsths (31372)]

> Ah, good old fashioned Harvard arrogance. Let's see how long this lasts.

My university has the same policy, although it is only recommended, not mandatory. So far I had no serious issues, as most publishers will accept copyright forms that retain the right to make the paper available on-line. Change is certainly happening, and it is about time to hop on the band wagon. :-)

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[Hatta (162192)]

The arrogance comes not from Harvard, but from the people who expect to make a living off of their reputation alone. The research is paid for by tax payer dollars. The reviewers work for free. They add literally no value besides their name. And in science what really matters is the quality of your research, not the name attached to it. It's a total racket, and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. I'll be glad to see them go the way of the buggy whip makers.

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[Moonpie Madness (764217)]

Their theory also is that other professors and universities will follow Harvard's lead again. Laugh all you want, but so many aspects of the American education system originated at Harvard.

This is an obvious and important adjustment to the internet.

Go to SSRN and look at the law articles. A lot of very nice ones, the best ones published in a journal that allows a free copy to be distributed. I've seen first hand this trend. Journals will take notice and adjust.

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[DoofusOfDeath (636671)]

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.

But wouldn't that just accelerate the demise of those journals, since then there would be little reason to subscribe? I know that lately I've been chaffing at the cost of IEEE and ACM journal subscriptions. The main reason I bother is to get access to the articles I need for my research.

This conversation reminds me of the dilemma face

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[aztektum (170569)]

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.

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[DoofusOfDeath (636671)]

Only if the only value those journals add is distribution. They will still provide a very important role in aggregating articles of interest, so you're not digging through hundreds that you don't care about. They can also provide a forum for criticism and defense of articles.

I agree. Knowing that an article got published in ACM's Transactions on Programming Languages is a great sign that it's a paper worth making time to read. I think it's terribly important that we somehow retain a set of reviewers who

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[Moonpie Madness (764217)]

I think more professors want their articles available on SSRN networks than just Harvard's.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[TheGoodSteven (1178459)]

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 (165692)]

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

[Vellmont (569020)]

What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this.

They'll just have to change their policy. I'm sure this is really what this whole policy is about. If enough research institutions make this a policy, the journals which have had so much control over controlling publication will have no other choice.

Re:Faculty members can publish in any journal that

[kebes (861706)]

What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this.

Well Nature Magazine [nature.com] actually does allow you to publish even if you've put the article on a pre-print server (see this blog post [nature.com] that explains their editorial policy [nature.com]). In fact, Nature runs their own pre-print server called Nature Precedings [nature.com], so they are obviously preprint-friendly. In fact, a large number of journals [nature.com] 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 [sciencemag.org]), the trend is clearly towards allowing preprint archiving.

Does this mean that Harvard will break copyright agreements?

According to TFA [chronicle.com]:

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 (913150)]

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.

Not a bad idea

[KublaiKhan (522918)]

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.

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[rumblin'rabbit (711865)]

I share your frustration, and often wonder why work coming out of publically paid institutions (e.g., state colleges) is not freely available to the public, giving that taxpayers are paying for these researchers' salaries and expenses.

I suspect that the authors themselves feel frustrated as well, since they usually want their work to be as widely available as possible, but at the same time want to publish in leading journals.

Wasn't there some U.S. legislation on this?

Re:Not a bad idea

[nasor (690345)]

"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.

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[KublaiKhan (522918)]

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 su

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[KublaiKhan (522918)]

What you asked for is in the bit following that, where I talk about lung tissue scarring and fluid production, amongst other things.

Unless you wish to dispute that also?

It's easy to say "you're wrong"--but one thing I've learned over time is that in order to be taken seriously, one must do two things:

1. Provide substantiation for your opinion. Proof, in other words, why you're more correct than the other gent.

2. Stand behind your words. Take responsibility for what you say, and acknowledge any mistakes

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[rumblin'rabbit (711865)]

Only people affiliated with a university should be trying to make use of scholarly materials to tell others how they believe the world works. Educating people is not your concern if you are outside the community of educators itself.

That point is so patently dumb I can only assume that you are being sarcastic.

Educators != professional educators

[tepples (727027)]

Background: Right now, you state on your web site [christopherculver.com] that you are pursuing an M.A. from the University of Helsinki.

Only people affiliated with a university should be trying to make use of scholarly materials to tell others how they believe the world works.

Is that how you believe the world works? If so, would you continue to make that assertion, or any other assertions, once you get your M.A.?

Educating people is not your concern if you are outside the community of educators itself.

I agree with KublaiKhan that "education is everyone's concern." There's a difference between the community of educators and the community of professional educators; this difference [wikipedia.org] consists of non-professional educators. People who post on forums or wikis are

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[Miseph (979059)]

I can see that [b]you're[/b] not affiliated with one, so does that make you wrong? OH GOD THE PARADOX IS EATING MY BRAIN!

I do wonder if this applies only to universities, however. Does it apply to schools which offer bachelor's degrees, but do not offer post-graduate programs? How about community/junior colleges which only offer associate's degrees? High schools? I would posit that the faculty at all of those institutions are also educators, and that both they and the students are in equal need of research

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[CRCulver (715279)]

Well, I believe LUC (where I finished my undergraduate studies) does. All parts of the library are open to students, and online journals may be accessible with an alumnus network account. But with regards to my point above, if you are a mere alumnus, you are not affiliated with a university in such a way that you should be using scholarly materials to make points to others. Just getting a degree without holding a position does not qualify one to do such things.

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[gnick (1211984)]

...if you are a mere alumnus, you are not affiliated with a university in such a way that you should be using scholarly materials to make points to others. Just getting a degree without holding a position does not qualify one to do such things.

I sincerely hope that you're just trolling and don't believe this garbage. By your logic, do you imply that an active second-year biology student is more qualified to educate his peers than somebody who holds a PhD with 20 year of experience working at the CDC [cdc.gov]?

pfft...

[djupedal (584558)]

iTunes U has a bit of a lead [apple.com], me thinks.

Eduction?

[timelorde (7880)]

... 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 [thefreedictionary.com]

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

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[langelgjm (860756)]

It's still an error, even if you happen to spell another word bye accident.

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[NullProg (70833)]

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":

Then you should be making snide comments about Mr/Mrs Vooch. Yes Taco posted the story, but the submitter wrote the title, introduction, and beginning comments.

Enjoy,

Reading d.n.e understanding

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

Reading this material no more makes one a Harvard grad than reading Einstein's works makes one an expert at Physics; the good news is that I read through the material and it didn't not make me any more dumber.

Bullshit!!

[Sethosayher (812094)]

Not fair! I paid 40k a year to get an education and exclude people in the process!

Perhaps OP meant, "induction" ?

[wattrlz (1162603)]

Perhaps matriculating at Harvard doesn't garantee the best education, but just getting in is quite an honor.

Thank God!

[Pedrito (94783)]

I'm taking the semester off and I'm thinking I should have taken basket-weaving (a class I would no doubt fail) just to maintain my access to journals. Just the other night, I was looking for information on fairly new algorithms for dealing with image processing and almost every reference I could find was a journal I'd have to pay to get access to.

It seems to me that it's in everyone's best interest to make this information freely available. Think about it, as a programmer, having access to this information

Moving in the Right Direction

[kidcharles (908072)]

This is a move in the right direction towards an acceptable model of academic publishing. I find it interesting and not surprising that this policy was proposed by a computer science professor, I think this is the open source philosophy spilling over into non-computer-code realms. For those that are not familiar with the publication process, and who might have some misconceptions as to where money and labor comes from, here's a basic rundown:

1. The author, more often than not funded with tax dollars, submits a fully written manuscript to a journal
   
2. The journal arranges to have one or more individuals in the field review this manuscript and give their input. These people are anonymous volunteers and are unpaid.
   
3. The journal sends the anonymous comments to the author, the author makes corrections and resubmits.
   
4. Steps 2 and 3 are repeated until the manuscript is either accepted or rejected.
   
5. If accepted, the author pays the journal for publishing (typically $1k or more for a single article).
   
6. The journal fixes small typographical errors, typesets the documents, and publishes the article online (as PDF) and in paper form.
   

In order to access the published material, one must have a paid subscription, either individual or institutional, the latter often being tens of thousands of dollars per year per journal, pushing total subscription costs for institutions well into the millions of dollars per year. So, for the revenues generated from both authors paying publishing fees and institutions and individuals paying (often hefty) subscriptions, the journal arranges unpaid peer reviewing and typesets and publishes the manuscript, that's it. In addition to the subscription fees, the journal retains copyright to the works published. So we have a situation where taxpayer-funded research is stuck behind a very expensive wall. In my opinion this research must be freely available to the public, period. The question then is, if journals are not replaced with a different model, who pays them to keep them in business? I propose that the journals be contracted by the federal government and paid directly. Government (whether state or federal in the U.S.) is already paying the journals, both through grant money for author publishing fees as well as institutional subscriptions, but what it is getting is closed to the public. A direct payment keeps the journals in business (they do provide an important service) and the information is publicly available. I don't know how feasible this scheme is, but it's an idea to fix a broken system.

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[rumblin'rabbit (711865)]

If a journal's policies are not compatible with carrying Harvard research, it will likely become no longer a leading journal.

Possibly, but has someone told the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) this? Here's some excerpts from their policies...

.. authors grant ACM the rights to their work, which include the exclusive rights to sell subscriptions and access licenses to it.

ACM requires authors to assign their copyrights to ACM as a condition of publishing the work.

ACM versus Harvard - clash o

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[geoffspear (692508)]

You're unlikely to see scholarly publications online in anything but PDF or HTML any time soon.

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[urcreepyneighbor (1171755)]

As opposed to being inducted, subjected, injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected for the school-for-learning-to-talk-through-your-teeth?

Toss in a ballgag and it sounds like my last date.