Open Access and Archiving Research Publications
MIT Faculty Open Access Policy: Implementation & Impact
Ellen Duranceau, Program Manager: Scholarly Publishing and Licensing, MIT
Aim of policy – “The faculty at MIT is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible”
Permission-Based Policy – License grant to MIT
– grants MIT non-exculsive permission to exercise all rights under copyright, provided articles not sold for a profit.
– Exists prior to any publihser copyright agreement
– copyright is not transferred to MIT
– copyright can still be transferred to publisher, subject to prior license to MIT
– Opt outs accepted automatically on a per-paper bases
Oversight
– Office of Provost, in consultation with Faculty Committee on Library System. Will be reviewed on 2014.
Key Factors
– Faculty driven, with library involvement
– Value-based and culture/mission-driven
– Permission-based policy changes default with no author action
– Mediated deposit in repository
– Assertive implementation with workflow tracking, provides assessment data
– Convenient – no paperwork from faculty
Three channels to obtain papers
– Publishers’ websites – if allowed (>30)
— Automatic copy of PDF
— Automatic SWORD deposit for: Biomed Central, Hindawi, Nature experiment (test phase)
– Repositories & MIT websites
– Faculty requests, via subject librarian liaisons
Drawing citations from Scopus and Web of Science, de-duping with EndNote, combining with Data Warehouse of faculty names, then send email to faculty listing papers which haven’t been able to obtain from automated sources and haven’t been opted out. Liaisons found this process worked to open doors and start conversations with faculty.
Constraints
– faculty time
– availability of final accepted manuscript
– faculty concerns about publisher
– publisher responses – e.g. changing author agreement to require opt out.
– Most publishers cooperating. Some who require opt out still allow posting.
Staff support for OA policy
– Existing staff repurposed – .5 term position added. .75 – 1.0 FTE librarian (parts of two people). .5 FTE acquisitions support staff. .25-.5 metadata support/student staff, ~10 hours/week temp. acquisitions & metadata student staff.
Impact – 7,800 papers. Over 630,000 downloads since Oct ’09, 40k per month.
About 4% of articles opted out, all because of publisher requirements.
Open Access & Archiving Research Publications
David Seaman, Associate Librarian for Info Management, Dartmouth
Fairly deep and broad commitment to open access. Member of COPE, signatory to Berlin Declaration on Open Access, etc. Struggling to disambiguate publishing in an Open Access journal from making access open. Faculty and student council on the libraries working on Dartmouth Faculty Open Access Resolution and Policy to bring to faculty senate.
Elementa – Partnership with BioOne and four other institutions launch 6 OA domains in July 2013. “Science of the Anthropocene” Dartmouth as tech partner building new high-function publication platform based on PLOS ONE’s Ambra 2.0 system using JATS 1.0 XML.
Archiving Research Publications – Have a deep investment in administrative records, using OnBase. Using RSTOR locally for research dataset storage. D2I policy work for campus. Infrastructure planning for digital library program. Doing a Stakeholder Needs Assessment to work out what research publications services are actually needed by faculty. Discovering the Information Needs of Humanists when Planning an Institutional Repository (D-Lib 17, 2011), Ithaka S+R Institutional Repository Services Report, December 2012. Focus with faculty is on articulating a range of services, not on selling the infrastructure.
Where they are today: Solid policy discussions and good stakeholder needs assessment. Systems for managing datasets and admin/archival records in place. New system for OA publishing underway. No existing Institutional repository. No campus-wide faculty profiles (lots of faculty websites of indeterminate freshness).
Looking for a broad research info management system – fed by Banner, HR, CrossRef, Orcid, Scopus, ResearcherID, Google Scholar, etc. Feeding open access repository, dataset access, faculty profiles, grants management, etc.
Kevin Smith – Directory of Copyright and Scholarly Communication, Duke
Duke’s Open Access Policy – Twin Foundations
See it as a step in a process of re-imagining scholarly communications.
ETDs (DukeSpace) since 2006, Law School journals open access since 1998, with repository in 2005.
Two channels for discussion: OA policy as a legal mechanism (legal status, implementation), OA policy as an expression of values.
Legal status: policy gives university a non-exclusive license to put a copy of each published journal article written by faculty members into repository. Policy is waivable, but irrevocable once license comes into existence. Gone about implementation in a non-confrontational way, to reduce burden on faculty.
Adoption – origin in faculty committee related to grant. OA policy was first priority chosen. Many conversations with faculty groups. “Secret to success is to take a drink with anyone who offers”. 3 broad issues: Is OA a good idea? (impact on journals and scholarly societies); Is university-wide policy best way to support OA? (disciplinary differences); How will it be implemented (will it create extra work?). Policy approved unanimously by faculty council.
Practical arguments: Higher citation rate/greater visibility; Interdisciplinary relationships; press coverage/public understanding; SPEED! (the big thing that mattered to lots of faculty, particularly in sciences).
Values-based arguments were very important in faculty debate. Expected readers: Patients, researchers at under-resourced institutions; clinicians and care-givers. Unexpected readers: Policy makers, independent researchers, ordinary people making decisions.
Implementation – Faculty made clear commitment to OA as a principle, with several caveats: reduce workload, don’t create conflicts with journal publishers.
Role of Libraries – Answered questions about: peer-review, publishing business models, risk of plagiarism, budget & staffing for repository. Major role has been in implementation: Working to automate process and tie it to activities faculty already do, like annual reporting and creation of profiles; harvesting citations, creating “batches” based on publisher policies; communicating with authors when articles upload or post-print version is needed.
Risks and benefits: Method is slow, labor-intensive; pressure on Libraries to make policy success. But helps re-focus role of Libraries in digital age; aligns libraries with clearly expressed academic values of faculty.
Oren Sreebny 