Two recent comments on the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity, where students from schools not participating in the compact call on their universities to do so:
... The five schools that joined the compact are Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT and our rivals across the Bay, Berkeley. Stanford’s name is quite conspicuously absent from this list. Our school has been one of the leaders of this movement for many years, and thus, it is discouraging to see that other schools are carrying the torch for this necessary push. ...
With the announcement of this new consortium, Stanford appears to be trending behind its peer institutions in this battle over publishing. ...
Our motto at Stanford is “The Wind of Freedom Blows.” Let us take that motto to heart and open up the best research on Earth. ...
... [The University of Pennsylvania]'s name is noticeably lacking from the compact. According to Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty, the Provost's Office and the University Libraries plan to work together to determine the optimal way for the school to implement an open-access policy. Emphasizing the diversity present in Penn scholarship, Fluharty stressed that "one size is not going to fit all." He estimates that a committee charged with finding a solution to this issue will spend the next four to six months developing recommendations for a policy.
While universities should clearly seek models that best suit their own interests, this every-man-for-himself plan, in which institutions individually adopt conflicting policies, leaves much to be desired. Practically, it could mean myriad logistical difficulties for journals concerning how they cover publication costs. ...
Instead, researchers, institutions and publishers should come together to create a comprehensive plan for the future of open access. ...
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.
