Harvard Mandates Open Access

The Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) on February 12 unanimously approved a motion that compels FAS members to deposit their scholarly articles in an open access (OA) institutional repository, thus raising the bar for other universities. Faculty members, however, can opt out of compliance by obtaining a waiver, which some critics suggested might undermine the policy's impact.

Professor of computer science Stuart Shieber, who sponsored the motion, cited spiraling serials costs for forcing subscription cuts and reducing intellectual exchange. “There is no question that scholarly journals have...allowed scholars to distribute their research to audiences around the world,” Shieber said, “but the scholarly publishing system has become far more restrictive than it need be.”

While specific details are pending, the policy presents a central role for the library. Harvard librarian Robert Darnton, in a Harvard Crimson op-ed, said the library would “set up an Office for Scholarly Communication to make the open access repository an instrument for access to research across all disciplines,” likening it to the HOLLIS catalog that serves as the “gateway to the more than 80 libraries in the university system.”

The mandate resembles a publishing contract. It compels faculty to give the university “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, can reassign them subject to the university's license, and are free to publish in other journals. The mandate does not apply to already completed articles, nor to those at Harvard's professional schools.

The waiver, Shieber explained to LJ, “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.”

OA advocate Stevan Harnad, however, questioned whether “potential author resistance to perceived or actual constraints on their choice of which journal to publish in” would hamper the policy's effectiveness. If a prestigious journal in a researcher's field requires exclusivity, will that be enough to motivate a researcher to opt out?

While similar OA policies are being considered at a number of universities, faculty and librarians in the blogosphere overwhelmingly viewed the Harvard vote as a watershed. “Harvard is inserting the wedge and making it easier for other universities to follow suit,” wrote OA advocate Peter Suber.

In The Scientist, publishing consultant Joseph Esposito suggested the Harvard mandate could fuel a realignment in the STM publishing industry. “If OA is the future (and Harvard says it is),” he noted, “then the publishing community is not going to sit back and let their businesses slip away.”