Close
Close

Share

MIT Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy for Scholarly Articles

MIT's faculty members last week decided on a new policy to make all of their scholarly articles available free to the public online. Articles will be disseminated using an open source platform called DSpace, which was developed by the MIT Libraries and HP.

Faculty members voted unanimously to adopt the new policy, which is in effect now.

"The vote is a signal to the world that we speak in a unified voice; that what we value is the free flow of ideas," said Bish Sinyal, chair of the MIT faculty and the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning, in a statement released recently by MIT's News Office.

According to MIT, this is the first initiative of its kind on this scale to be initiated by faculty and implemented through a faculty vote. The resolution is based on language adopted by Harvard's Faculty of Arts & Sciences in 2008. Under the policy, faculty members grant MIT permission to distribute their articles through DSpace, MIT's digital repository of research materials. MIT said it expects "potentially thousands of papers published by MIT faculty each year will be added to DSpace and made freely available on the web and accessible through search engines such as Google."

"Through this action, MIT faculty have shown great leadership in the promotion of free and open scholarly communication," said Ann Wolpert, MIT's director of libraries. "In the quest for higher profits, publishers have lost sight of the values of the academy. This will allow authors to advance research and education by making their research available to the world."

"Scholarly publishing has so far been based purely on contracts between publishers and individual faculty authors," said Hal Abelson, the Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and chair of the Ad-Hoc Faculty Committee on Open Access Publishing. "In that system, faculty members and their institutions are powerless. This resolution changes that by creating a role in the publishing process for the faculty as a whole, not just as isolated individuals."

MIT's implementation of DSpace, called DSpace at MIT, can be found here.

About the Author

Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's online education publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com. He can now be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/THEJournalDave (K-12) or http://twitter.com/CampusTechDave (higher education).

Comments

Sat, Mar 28, 2009 Anna Dubai

Thanks for sharing this! I've sent this link to a number of people! Another great place to look for open resources in the K-12 space is www.Curriki.org (See description below). To see a brief video about Curriki and the teachers around the world that access the site for open content, look here: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/News/ArticleVideoCurrikiattheTechAwards Curriki often posts about other open ed resource on Twitter: Curriki Anna www.literacyispriceless.com Twitter: Osakalumna About www.Curriki.org Curriki is a social entrepreneurship organization that supports the development and free distribution of open source educational materials to improve education worldwide. The online community gives teachers, students and parents universal access to a wealth of peer-reviewed primary and secondary curricula, and powerful online collaboration tools. Curriki is building a unique web site that offers complete, open courses of instruction and assessment. Founded by Sun Microsystems in 2004, the organization has operated as an independent nonprofit since 2006. Curriki originated from the idea that technology can play a crucial role in breaking down the barriers of the Education Divide – the gap between those who have access to high-quality education and those who do not. The initial focus is on primary and secondary curricula in the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, technology, language arts, and foreign languages. The site has already been translated into Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Indonesian Bahasa. Moving forward Curriki aims to become a vital resource of Arabic language reading and curricula materials as well.

Sat, Mar 28, 2009 Anna Dubai

Thanks for sharing this! I've sent this link to a number of people! Another great place to look for open resources in the K-12 space is www.Curriki.org (See description below). To see a brief video about Curriki and the teachers around the world that access the site for open content, look here: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/News/ArticleVideoCurrikiattheTechAwards Curriki often posts about other open ed resource on Twitter: Curriki Anna www.literacyispriceless.com Twitter: Osakalumna About www.Curriki.org Curriki is a social entrepreneurship organization that supports the development and free distribution of open source educational materials to improve education worldwide. The online community gives teachers, students and parents universal access to a wealth of peer-reviewed primary and secondary curricula, and powerful online collaboration tools. Curriki is building a unique web site that offers complete, open courses of instruction and assessment. Founded by Sun Microsystems in 2004, the organization has operated as an independent nonprofit since 2006. Curriki originated from the idea that technology can play a crucial role in breaking down the barriers of the Education Divide – the gap between those who have access to high-quality education and those who do not. The initial focus is on primary and secondary curricula in the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, technology, language arts, and foreign languages. The site has already been translated into Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Indonesian Bahasa. Moving forward Curriki aims to become a vital resource of Arabic language reading and curricula materials as well.

Wed, Mar 25, 2009 Jhun Cris Infanta, Quezon, Phils.

The action of MIT faculty and administration deserves a round of applause in making the whole world know that freedom in learning should be pragmatically done using the internet technology. There will come a time that IPR could be an oxymoron of the fast changing technologies nowadays and in the future. Within the line of thinking, vedi, I saw, veni, I came, Educare, I learned, Educere, I shared...MIT deserves recognition in their application of what we know ---TECHNOLOGY (know-how)...Thanks a lot in behalf of the world.

Wed, Mar 25, 2009 C.A. Heidelberger http://madvilletimes.blogspot.com

A key part of relevance is accessibility. When we squirrel our knowledge away in journals few outside our disciplines read, we lose relevance. Congratulations, MIT, for taking another step toward relevance and the general good.

Tue, Mar 24, 2009 Danny Cleary Jamaica, NY

Does the Campus/Administration interevene on each contract to assure that copyright stays out of the publishers' hands and if so who ends up owning the copyright? Have any publishers agreed to this arrangement prior to this announcement or are the faculty intent on publishing only in open access journals? Is there a time delay on publishing and open access? Our any major traditional indices planning on linking to the MIT/HP servers from their commercially provided index? ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL MIT..and harvard?

Tue, Mar 24, 2009

I think this is a great idea and I applaud the MIT for being leaders in sharing their ideas and knowledge with those of us still in school needing research to work from.

Add your Comment

Your Name:(optional)
Your Email:(optional)
Your Location:(optional)
Comment:
Please type the letters/numbers you see above