A campus of The California
State University
Office of the Academic
Senate •
SS-S08-3
At its
meeting of March 10, 2008, the Academic Senate passed the following Sense of
the Senate Resolution presented by Senator Peter for the University Library
Board.
SENSE OF THE
SENATE RESOLUTION
Calling for a
Task Force to Investigate Open Access to Publications through an SJSU
institutional repository, and make appropriate Recommendations
Resolved, That
the Academic Senate of San Jose State University should organize a special task
force to investigate whether SJSU should adopt a policy concerning Open Access
to faculty publications through an institutional repository managed by the University Library; be it
further
Resolved, That
the special task force should consider whether SJSU has an obligation and/or a
need to create an Open Access policy of its own. It should consider, among other things, the
examples of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences[1] in adopting an open access
policy, the example of the NIH Public Access policy[2], and the success and
reputation of open access publications such as the Public Library of Science;
be it further
Resolved, That
the special task force should include representatives of all concerned
administrators and faculty; among those representatives should be the Dean of
the University Library, a specialist from the library on institutional
repositories, a representative from the office of Graduate Studies and
Research, a representative from the University Foundation, appropriate Deans
and/or Associate Deans, faculty with expertise on RTP issues, faculty with
experience and expertise on copyright issues, faculty who (collectively) have
published government-funded research in a wide range of peer reviewed
journals–including online, faculty who have served on the Foundation Board, and
any others that the Senate and its committees think useful to give the Task
Force the widest possible expertise on the subject
Rationale:
The
subject of “Open Access” to faculty publications has steadily grown in
importance over the last several years and has finally reached a crescendo this
spring. First, the NIH promulgated requirements for open access to publications
funded by NIH grants, and second (after their own task force took a year to
study the issue) the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted
a sweeping open access policy for nearly all articles they publish.
The
general background for open access concerns the spiraling costs both of print
journals and of online subscriptions to electronic journals. Universities have increasingly resented the
fact that they hire faculty and fund their research, but that their libraries
then have to pay huge amounts of money to access the fruits of this
research. It has come to the point that
many libraries can no longer afford to subscribe to all the journals in which
their own faculty publish–or they can only do so by making inordinate
sacrifices elsewhere in their budgets.
This is a gross perversion of the ideals of academic freedom, in which
the ideas and knowledge of faculty are supposed to be widely disseminated among
their peers and colleagues for critical comment and public benefit.
For a
number of years, University Libraries and faculty activists have urged that
academia begin to take measures to find alternative ways to disseminate faculty
knowledge. There have been formidable
barriers to overcome–including the need to publish in established peer-reviewed
journals, copyright restrictions, and others.
Only recently have solutions to these problems begun to become
available, as the Harvard faculty attest.
For example, publishing in peer-reviewed journals does not preclude open access dissemination of faculty
research and scholarship.
The
University Library Board believes that it is now time for SJSU to examine these
issues for itself, with the full resources of its faculty and staff. We now do have an electronic repository which
could be used for faculty publications–if appropriate. Above all, a policy concerning something as
vital as faculty publications should be produced by the faculty–and not imposed
through external pressures.
Approved: 13-0-0
Discussed
at meeting on March 3, 2008. Approved by
email vote March 5, 2008
Present: Moon,
Bernier, Smith, Peterson, Von Til, Bakke, Kifer, Whitney, Chung, Chang, Fleming, DeSalvo, Peter
Absent:
Vote: 13-0-0
Financial impact: S.O.S. resolutions have no financial impact
Workload impact: S.O.S. resolutions have no direct workload impact. However, should the Senate decide to create
a Task Force on Open Access as suggested, it would of course involve
considerable committee work.