Open Access News

On April 23, the Faculty Senate of the University of Washington adopted an OA resolution (pp. 21-22) by an overwhelming majority.  From the resolution:

Resolution Concerning Scholarly Publishing Alternatives and Authors’ Rights

...Be it resolved, that

1. the University of Washington prepare for a future in which academic publications are increasingly available through open sources by encouraging faculty members to:

• assess the pricing practices and authors’ rights policies of journals with which they collaborate (as authors, reviewers, and editors) and advocate for improvements therein; and
• adopt and use an Addendum to Publication Agreement such as that provided by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) in order to retain their rights to use their work in the classroom and in future publications and to archive final accepted manuscripts; and
• publish scholarly works in moderately priced journals, in journals published by professional societies and associations, or in peer-reviewed “open access” journals; and
• archive their work in the UW’s ResearchWorks or other repositories supported by research institutions, professional societies, or government agencies in order to provide the widest and most affordable access to their scholarship; and

2. UW Libraries is encouraged to

• provide relevant, current information regarding journal publishers, pricing, and authors’ rights to departments and individual faculty members; and
• maintain and further develop ResearchWorks and related services; and
• allocate personnel to facilitate the deposit of faculty publications in ResearchWorks, and to obtain publishers’ permission to deposit previously published works when possible; and

3. the University of Washington administration is encouraged to:

• provide resources to the Libraries and to academic units to foster these efforts; and
• work with departments and colleges to assure that the review process for promotion, tenure and merit takes into consideration these new trends and realities in academic publication.

Thanks to Charles Wilkinson (Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) for the alert.  Thanks too for this background information, which I quote with his permission:

...It is somewhat similar to the resolution voted down by the University of Maryland, but we managed to avoid some of the pitfalls that apparently doomed their resolution. In terms of open access, ours is a weak resolution; it doesn't mandate anything on the part of anyone. When I, as chair of the Faculty Council on University Libraries (affectionately, the FCUL), first thought about this, I envisioned it as the first of a two-step process. First, I thought it necessary to draft a resolution such as this to raise awareness of the problems in scholarly communication and suggest to faculty members how they could make informed publishing decisions and make use of our repository. I hope that the second step will be something very similar to the Harvard mandate, perhaps a year or two down the road....In various discussions, we repeatedly encountered the arts-humanities/sciences divide and watered down the resolution in response -- suggesting publishing in moderately priced journals as an alternative to open access journals....By the time it reached the Faculty Senate for a final vote, there was little discussion and no real dissent. Perhaps the resolution is not strong enough, but it's a start.

Comments

• As Wilkinson says, it's not a mandate, but it does contain the very elements (encouragement of green and gold OA) recently voted down at the University of Maryland.   To make the comparison even tighter, note that both votes took place on April 23, 2009.  What's notable here is that another university is encouraging OA.  More pointedly, another university is proving that the combination of elements defeated in Maryland needn't trigger faculty opposition, even apart from the evidence that much stronger policies have been approved by unanimous faculty votes on other campuses.  Some Washington faculty were apparently worried that the encouragement to publish in OA journals would limit their freedom to submit to the journals of their choice, even though it was just encouragement.  Washington addressed those concerns by widening the encouragement beyond OA journals, while campuses adopting firm OA mandates have addressed them by focusing on green OA and allowing opt-outs on request.  Finally, "it's a start" and Washington may consider a Harvard-style mandate in another year or two. 
• Also see our past posts on OA activity at the University of Washington.