Friday, February 15, 2008

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Adopts Open Access Mandate

The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed an open access mandate on February 12, 2008. This is particularly noteworthy as a mandate requested by faculty, rather than administration or research funders.

Watch for more mandates from universities in the near future. The University of Oregon Faculty Senate adopted a resolution in support of an open access mandate on February 13th. The European Universities Association (more than 700 universities in 46 countries) made a unanimous commitment to adopt open access policies at each of their institutions, earlier this year.

Details on the Harvard policy can be found on Open Access News, at:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/text-of-harvard-policy.html

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education can be found at:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/3943/harvard-faculty-adopts-open-access-requirement