25 University Provosts Say Open Access is Good for Education, for Research, and for American Public
Scott Jaschik, Rallying Behind Open Access, Inside Higher Ed, July 28, 2006. Excerpt by Peter Suber Open Access News:
In an attempt to refocus the debate, the provosts of 25 top universities are jointly releasing an open letter that strongly backs the bill and encourages higher education to prepare for a new way of disseminating research findings....
The letter originated with the provosts of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which includes the universities of the Big Ten Conference plus the University of Chicago....“I think the provosts are concerned that our scientists are doing important research, and their fields demand that they publish the research in highly respected journals, and then those journals become more and more expensive and control information in a way that is worrisome,” said R. Michael Tanner, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs of the University of Illinois at Chicago and one of those who worked on the letter. When universities can’t afford to keep all of their subscriptions, universities face the prospect that their own faculty members can’t read the findings of fellow faculty members - even when taxpayers paid for the research. “At a certain point, we can’t be held prisoner within the publication system,” Tanner said.
Tanner said he was worried about how the changes already taking place in publishing - and those that could potentially take place because of this legislation - would affect small publishers. But he said that the reality was that larger publishers were making large profits off universities like his.
Barbara Allen, director of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, said that she hoped the open letter would reshape the debate on open access. “The public debate on these issues seems to be driven by the commercial publishing sector, and the scholarly publishers were lining up with the commercial sector,” she said. The provosts wanted to make clear to Congress and others that “our needs as communities of scholars” aren’t necessarily the same as those of large commercial publishers....
[T]he provosts’ action marks a shift of sorts for academic leaders. Scholarly associations (many of which depend for their budgets on journal sales) have been against these kinds of changes - even as more and more of their members demand free, online access for information. The groups that represent colleges have also been less than enthusiastic about this push. The Association of American Universities - which includes most of the institutions whose provosts signed the open letter - hasn’t taken a position on the bill, and officials say that they see both benefits and problems with the legislation.
While the provosts don’t claim the legislation is perfect, they want university leaders to be decidedly on the “open access” side of the debate....
Comment by P Suber: Comment. This is big. It will lead to strong OA policies at many more universities. It will elicit endorsements from provosts not captured in the first wave. It shows that research institutions favor OA and that journal-publishing learned societies that oppose it are speaking more for their publishing arms than for their members. It exerts pressure on the Association of American Universities (AAU) to endorse OA and FRPAA or be left behind by its own members. (The AAU is a major voice in Washington on policies affecting research and education.) And finally, of course, it's decisive new support for FRPAA that is bound to be persuasive to members of Congress representing districts where these 25 universities are located.
In an attempt to refocus the debate, the provosts of 25 top universities are jointly releasing an open letter that strongly backs the bill and encourages higher education to prepare for a new way of disseminating research findings....
The letter originated with the provosts of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which includes the universities of the Big Ten Conference plus the University of Chicago....“I think the provosts are concerned that our scientists are doing important research, and their fields demand that they publish the research in highly respected journals, and then those journals become more and more expensive and control information in a way that is worrisome,” said R. Michael Tanner, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs of the University of Illinois at Chicago and one of those who worked on the letter. When universities can’t afford to keep all of their subscriptions, universities face the prospect that their own faculty members can’t read the findings of fellow faculty members - even when taxpayers paid for the research. “At a certain point, we can’t be held prisoner within the publication system,” Tanner said.
Tanner said he was worried about how the changes already taking place in publishing - and those that could potentially take place because of this legislation - would affect small publishers. But he said that the reality was that larger publishers were making large profits off universities like his.
Barbara Allen, director of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, said that she hoped the open letter would reshape the debate on open access. “The public debate on these issues seems to be driven by the commercial publishing sector, and the scholarly publishers were lining up with the commercial sector,” she said. The provosts wanted to make clear to Congress and others that “our needs as communities of scholars” aren’t necessarily the same as those of large commercial publishers....
[T]he provosts’ action marks a shift of sorts for academic leaders. Scholarly associations (many of which depend for their budgets on journal sales) have been against these kinds of changes - even as more and more of their members demand free, online access for information. The groups that represent colleges have also been less than enthusiastic about this push. The Association of American Universities - which includes most of the institutions whose provosts signed the open letter - hasn’t taken a position on the bill, and officials say that they see both benefits and problems with the legislation.
While the provosts don’t claim the legislation is perfect, they want university leaders to be decidedly on the “open access” side of the debate....
Comment by P Suber: Comment. This is big. It will lead to strong OA policies at many more universities. It will elicit endorsements from provosts not captured in the first wave. It shows that research institutions favor OA and that journal-publishing learned societies that oppose it are speaking more for their publishing arms than for their members. It exerts pressure on the Association of American Universities (AAU) to endorse OA and FRPAA or be left behind by its own members. (The AAU is a major voice in Washington on policies affecting research and education.) And finally, of course, it's decisive new support for FRPAA that is bound to be persuasive to members of Congress representing districts where these 25 universities are located.
posted by Israel Scholar | 27.7.06
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