In anticipation of worldwide Open Access Week, the Harvard Open Access
Project is pleased to release version 1.0 of a guide to good practices
for university open-access policies.
Gathering together recommendations on drafting,
adopting, and implementing OA policies, the guide is based on policies
adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and a couple of dozen other
institutions around the world. But it's not limited to policies of this
type and includes recommendations that should be useful to institutions
taking other approaches.
The guide is designed to evolve. As co-authors, we
plan to revise and enlarge it over time, building on our own experience
and the experience of colleagues elsewhere. We welcome suggestions.
The guide deliberately refers to "good practices" rather
than "best practices". On many points, there are multiple, divergent
good practices. Good practices are easier to identify than best
practices. And there can be wider agreement on which practices are good
than on which practices are best.
The current version of the guide has the benefit of
the advice of expert colleagues, and the endorsement of projects and
organizations devoted to the spread of effective university OA policies. It has been written in consultation with Ellen Finnie Duranceau, Ada
Emmett, Heather Joseph, Iryna Kuchma, and Alma Swan, and has already
been endorsed by the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions
(COAPI), Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Electronic
Information for Libraries (EIFL), Enabling Open Scholarship (EOS),
Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP), Open Access Scholarly Information
Sourcebook (OASIS), Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition (SPARC), and SPARC Europe.
Over time we hope to name more consulting experts
and endorsing organizations. Please contact us if you or your
organization may be interested. We do not assume that consulting experts or endorsing organizations support every recommendation in the guide.
The guide should be useful to institutions
considering an OA policy, and to faculty and librarians who would like
their institution to start considering one. We hope that institutions
with working policies will share their experience and recommendations,
and that organizers of Open Access Week events will link to the guide
and bring it to the attention of their participants.
Good practices for university open-access policies
Stuart Shieber
Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication, Harvard University
Peter Suber
Director of the Harvard Open
Access Project, Special Advisor to the Harvard Office for Scholarly
Communication, and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet &
Society
http://cyber.harvard.edu/people/psuber
Harvard Open Access Project
http://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap
Harvard Open Access Project
http://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap