Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, August 07, 2009

New resources on developing campus OA policies

SPARC, SPARC Calls on Campuses to Coordinate Open-Access Policy Efforts, press release, August 5, 2009.

... As a growing number of colleges and universities embark on the path toward an institutional open-access policy, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) invites libraries to take advantage of a new Web resource built to leverage experience gained in establishing such policies to date. ...

SPARC has introduced a new suite of Web-based tools to facilitate fact-based campus policy discussions on Open Access, including hot-button topics such as copyright, journal sustainability, disciplinary differences, and author rights. Readers are invited to:

  1. Learn about campus open-access policies implemented to date, including that of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, through videos and white papers publicly available online.
  2. Request copies of offline documents, including a list of “Responses to Common Misconceptions” related to open-access policies and “Choice Points” to be addressed in policy development.
  3. Request support from a group of expert advisers who helped to develop these resources, have experience with gaining faculty acceptance for an institutional open-access policy, and who stand by to answer questions that remain after examining available tools. ...
Disclosure: I served as a paid consultant in developing these resources.