Boston U Faculty, Admin Endorse Institution-Wide Open Access

Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 02/20/2009

• Move comes a year after Harvard
• Includes all 17 schools
• Institutional repository main component

(This article first appeared in the February 19 issue of the LJ Academic Newswire.)

In yet another major step toward an open access future, the Boston University (BU) faculty and administration this week voted unanimously to endorse an institution-wide, open access system. Just over a year after Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced its groundbreaking open access policy, BU officials said their policy went one better by including all 17 of the university’s schools. Harvard’s mandate did not cover its professional schools, though Harvard Law did adopt the policy later in 2008, and all of Harvard’s faculties are expected to sign on to it eventually.

“We believe this is the first time that a university as a whole has taken a stand on behalf of the institution as opposed to a single school or college,” said Wendy Mariner, chair of BU’s Faculty Council. As with Harvard’s policy, compliance with BU’s initiative would be voluntary, and would also rely on an institutional repository to disseminate BU’s research.

A timetable for implementation at BU has not been announced. At Harvard, the institutional repository underpinning its OA plan, DASH (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard), is still in beta testing.

Full embrace
Beyond endorsing the creation of mechanism to disseminate the research of its faculty, BU’s “recommendation” also included a full embrace of open access, calling the free exchange of scholarly information a "cornerstone of intellectual freedom." Among the policies and strategies approved by faculty and administrators, the university has recommended: 

• The establishment of an "innovative, model infrastructure for a central Boston University Knowledge Base and institutional repository."
• The creation of a "flexible format open access framework" that utilizes "a transparent, controlled vocabulary navigation system with key word retrieval."
• The linking of "multiple internal and external databases that facilitate and relate to faculty research, teaching and scholarly activities, including current faculty CVs."
• To facilitate "ease of faculty, student and administrative use" through "training and departmental support."
• To promote faculty research, teaching, and scholarship with "innovative new electronic tools and resources facilitated by open access."

The initiative also prompts the university to promote open access by encouraging faculty to enter only non-exclusive copyright agreements with publishers and participate in OA publishing. Suggesting a deeper engagement with the obstacles facing OA, it also urged "equal consideration of peer-reviewed Open Access journals during tenure and promotion."

Library's role
Robert Hudson, director of BU’s Mugar Memorial Library and co-chair of the University Council on scholarly activities and libraries, was a key force behind the move toward open access—but he is quick point out that BU's policy was all about the faculty. “The key words here,” Hudson told the LJ Academic Newswire, “are faculty, faculty, faculty.”

As it was with Harvard’s historic vote—and as it will be at any institution—action, Hudson stressed, change must come from faculty. “Because, this is, at its heart, a faculty issue about scholarly communication,” Hudson explained. “If OA was presented as a library-only issue, the vote would have been much more difficult. Although we talked about things like subscription costs, the conversation quickly turned to how best to communicate what the university is about, to showcase faculty excellence, and promote scholarly development in all its dimensions.”

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