The Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research has released a set of draft recommendations that aim to support and increase the open sharing of MIT publications, data, software, and educational materials. They are available for public comment until April 17.
The recommendations include ratifying an Institute-wide set of principles for open science; broadening the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy to cover all MIT authors; adopting an open access (OA) policy for monographs; and asking department heads to develop discipline-specific plans to encourage and support open sharing from their faculty, students, and staff.
“Our recommendations are grounded in the view that openness leads to better research,” says Chris Bourg, director of the MIT Libraries and co-chair of the OA task force along with Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “They are intended to reduce barriers and provide incentives to open sharing, while remaining flexible where needed to accommodate differences across disciplines.”
The Institute-wide OA task force, convened by Provost Martin Schmidt in July 2017, was charged with exploring how MIT should update and revise MIT’s current OA policies to “further the Institute’s mission of disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible.”
Over the past 18 months, task force members gathered input from experts across campus and beyond to better understand local, national, and global practices and policies related to open access. At MIT, the task force hosted two community forums and met with the five school councils, the Technology Licensing Office, the Committee on Intellectual Property, the vice president for research, and others. Members also consulted with representatives from Google, the Gates Foundation, Creative Commons, and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
From the American Library Association: The American Library Association (ALA) today released new data documenting* 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book ...
From a PSU Libraries Blog Post: Penn State University Libraries has announced the relaunch of an expanded Judy Chicago Research Portal, a searchable gateway to the archives of this prominent feminist ...
From the U.S. National Academy of Science: Registration is now open for the Nobel Prize Summit Truth, Trust and Hope — which will convene Nobel Prize laureates and other world-renowned experts and ...
From the Associated Press (AP): A powerful Missouri state lawmaker on Tuesday moved to strip state funding for public libraries over a fight about books. Republican House Budget Committee Chairman ...
From the ERC: A new study identifies repositories for data and publications that could help ERC grantees, as well as beneficiaries of other Horizon Europe grants, comply with EU open ...
Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) and Lyrasis Announce Succession Planning Initiative for Collections Stewardship Nearly 20 Hindawi Journals Delisted From Leading Index Amid Concerns of Papermill Activity ...
From the Houston Chronicle: Politically and socially conservative, Texas is a national leader in school book challenges and bans; a Chronicle investigation last summer counted more than 2,000 content reviews of challenged school library ...
From CT Insider: A bill that would end many of the contract restrictions won unanimous approval last week in the legislative Planning and Development Committee, following recent public hearings that brought ...
From the National Geographic Society: Today, the National Geographic Society launched the World Water Map as part of its five-year World Freshwater Initiative to better understand developing freshwater shortages around the world ...
AI Makes Plagiarism Harder to Detect, Argue Academics – in Paper Written by Chatbot (via The Guardian) Bing Image Creator Comes to the New Bing (via Microsoft) Censorship or Evolution? ...
UPDATE Hachette v. Internet Archive Statements, Materials, and Media Reports Re: March 20, 2023 Oral Arguments (Last Updated: 10:00am, March 21, 2023; We Expect Additional Updates) Media Reports A Skeptical ...
The article linked below was published today by Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL). Title Services to Mobile Users: The Best Practice from the Top-Visited Public Libraries in the US Authors ...
