For immediate release
April 28, 2008
For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan, SPARC
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121
jennifer arl.org
Kaitlin Thaney, Science Commons
(617) 395-7413
kaitlincreativecommons.org
SPARC AND SCIENCE COMMONS RELEASE GUIDE TO CREATING
INSTITUTIONAL
OPEN ACCESS POLICIES
New whitepaper offers ten simple steps to maximizing
campus-wide
research impact
Washington, DC and Cambridge, MA - April 28, 2008 - SPARC
and
Science Commons have released "Open Doors and Open
Minds: What
faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work
through their institution." The new white paper assists
institutions in adopting policies that ensure the widest
practical exposure for scholarly works produced, such as
that
adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in
February.
Co-authored by SPARC and Science Commons, "Open Doors
and Open
Minds" is a how-to guide for faculty, administrators,
and
advocates to formulate an institutional license grant that
delivers open access to campus research outputs. Some
institutions are considering such policies as they work to
comply
with new requirements for public access from national
agencies
including the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The white paper details the motivations behind the Harvard
policy, offers a concise explanation of U.S. Copyright Law
and
how it relates to the scholarly publishing process, and
makes
specific suggestions for faculty and advocates to pursue a
campus-wide policy. The guide offers a detailed plan of
action, a
series of institutional license options, and a 10-point list
of
actions for realizing a policy and adopting the right
University
License to meet the institution's particular needs.
Three different licenses, which are granted to the
institution by
the author, are offered for consideration:
Case 1. Broad license grant - a non-exclusive, perpetual,
irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise all of the
author's
exclusive rights under copyright, including the right to
grant
sublicenses.
Case 2. Intermediate license grant - involves license
restrictions that modify the scope of the license grant in
Case
1.
Case 3. Narrow license grant - grants to the university only
the
right to deposit the article in the institutional
repository, and
to make it available through the repository Web site.
The paper also recommends mandatory deposit of articles in
institutional repositories. Mandatory deposit may be adopted
regardless of the licensing policy chosen.
"The Harvard policy is a recognition that the Internet
creates
opportunities to radically accelerate distribution and
impact for
scholarly works," said John Wilbanks, Vice President of
Science
at Creative Commons. "As more universities move to
increase the
reach of their faculty's work, it's important that faculty
members have a clear understanding of the key issues
involved and
the steps along the path that Harvard has trail-blazed. This
paper is a foundational document for universities and
faculty to
use as they move into the new world of Open Access scholarly
works."
"Everyone - faculty, librarians, administrators, and
other
advocates - has the power to initiate change at their
institution," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director
of SPARC.
"By championing an open access policy, helping to
inform your
colleagues about the benefits of a policy change, and
identifying
the best license and most effective path to adoption, it can
be
done."
"Open Doors and Open Minds" and the 10-step action
list is openly
available on the SPARC Web site at
http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/guides/open
doors_v1.shtml .
For further details on the sponsors' advocacy and author
rights
programs, please visit SPARC at http://www.arl.org/sparc
and
Science Commons at http://www.sciencecomm
ons.org.
##
Science Commons
Science Commons designs strategies and tools for faster,
more
efficient web-enabled scientific research. Science Commons
identifies unnecessary barriers to research, crafts policy
guidelines and legal agreements to lower those barriers, and
develops technology to make research data and materials
easier to
find and use. The goal of Science Commons is to speed the
translation of data into discovery and to unlock the value
of
research so more people can benefit from the work scientists
are
doing. Science Commons is online at http://www.sciencecommo
ns.org
SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition),
with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international
alliance
of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to
create a more open system of scholarly communication.
SPARC's
advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs
encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on
the Web
at http://www.arl.org/sparc.
--------------------------
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources
Coalition)
http://www.arl.org/sparc
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