MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#2It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#3It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
I think it might be in part due to the frustration caused by now ubiquitous availability of articles, but large barriers to actually access those articles. Google lets you see tons of articles online as search results, but even institutional access generally will not allow you to see everything out there due to subscription budget constraints. I'm sure even a place like Harvard doesn't subscribe to every issue of every online journal.
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#4I think this is great. During orientation they discuss how to amend copyright agreements so that you retain the rights to publish your papers on your website etc. I'm glad they are making it official.
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#5It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
I think it might be in part due to the frustration caused by now ubiquitous availability of articles, but large barriers to actually access those articles. Google lets you see tons of articles online as search results, but even institutional access generally will not allow you to see everything out there due to subscription budget constraints. I'm sure even a place like Harvard doesn't subscribe to every issue of eve…
Are you considering the journal sharing databases the schools subscribe to?
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#6It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
I think it might be in part due to the frustration caused by now ubiquitous availability of articles, but large barriers to actually access those articles. Google lets you see tons of articles online as search results, but even institutional access generally will not allow you to see everything out there due to subscription budget constraints. I'm sure even a place like Harvard doesn't subscribe to every issue of eve…
At Pitt I can go to the library's website and request journals they don't have access to, I get an email the next day with a .pdf of the journal article requested.
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#7Words cannot describe how happy this makes me. My pet peeve is being addressed!
I dream of the day when I can learn science, as a non-university-affiliated citizen, by simply surfing from primary reference to primary reference via inline links.
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it might be in part due to the frustration caused by now ubiquitous availability of articles, but large barriers to actually access those articles. Google lets you see tons of articles online as search results, but even institutional access generally will not allow you to see everything out there due to subscription budget constraints. I'm sure even a place like Harvard doesn't subscribe to every issue of eve…
Are you considering the journal sharing databases the schools subscribe to?
The point is that even with institutional access (including interlibrary loan, shared databases, etc.), a lot of electronic information, which is readily deliverable, is not readily accessible.
On top of that, many people do not have institutional access, and are thus cut off from research results funded primarily or solely by their tax dollars. Or another way to look at it is that many "prestigious" journals will claim exclusive copyright, giving researchers the unfortunate choice between prestige and open access.
I'm still learning about this, as some people I know are pushing in the open research / open access direction.
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#9It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
The printing of physical journals was extremely expensive. So this was the main concern.
Also - this MIT is interesting (and good) but I doubt it would be applied everywhere. Will everyone at MIT stop publishing in IEEE journals (very restrictive about copyright)?
Re: MIT adopts a university-wide Open Access mandate
#10It's great that they're doing this, but I wonder: what is causing this sudden swing toward openness? Have they always wanted to open their research, but just never been able to do so economically until the Internet came along?
The printing of physical journals was extremely expensive. So this was the main concern. Also - this MIT is interesting (and good) but I doubt it would be applied everywhere. Will everyone at MIT stop publishing in IEEE journals (very restrictive about copyright)?
If those IEEE journals require that copyright be signed over to them without granting permission to the authors to make available their work, I don't see how they can publish in them.