Last November (11/29/05), the University of Iowa Faculty Senate adopted a resolution calling on faculty and administrators to support OA journals and repositories. George Porter has learned that the vote was unanimous.
Last month (3/22/06), the Iowa Graduate Student Senate adopted a similar resolution. Excerpt:
The University of Iowa Graduate Student Senate:
Supports the University of Iowa Faculty Senate in their resolution of
November 29, 2005, on Scholarly Publishing.
Encourages graduate students to become familiar with the pricing and
business practices of journals and journal publishers in their specialty.
Recognizes that graduate students, as they move along in their career, can
exert a positive influence on the direction of scholarly publishing through the
choices they make in the submission of papers, the commitment of time to
refereeing activities, and participation in editorial work.
Encourages the University to support new models for scholarly publishing,
including open access journals and archives, disciplinary and institutional
repositories and other approaches that enhance the broad dissemination of
knowledge while preserving peer review and excellence in scholarship.
Recognizes that graduate students can retain intellectual property rights,
in order to allow them greater freedom to disseminate their work and thereby
maximize the impact of their scholarship.
Encourages higher education to support these changes through the promotion
and tenure system and other reward mechanisms, and by providing incentives and
support for those advancing alternative models.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/07/2006 10:11:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
