Harvard Mandate Adds ID/OA, Hurray!

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 14:15:18 -0400

Excellent news from Harvard! It looks as if the Harvard Green OA
Mandate is has added an ID/OA Immediate Deposit Clause with no
opt-out. 

This would make it into the optimal Green OA Mandate model, now ready
for all universities worldwide to emulate: rights-retention (with
optional opt-out) plus Immediate-Deposit (without opt-out).

And please remember that three main reasons researchers are not
self-archiving spontaneously are (1) worries that it might be
illegal, (2) worries that it might put acceptance by their preferred
journal at risk, and (3) worries that it might take a lot of time.
They need mandates from their institutions and funders not in order
to coerce them to self-archive but in order to embolden them to
self-archive, making it official that it is not only okay to
self-archive, but that it is expected of them, and well worth the few
minutes worth of extra keystrokes per paper.

The Harvard mandate now has all the requisite ingredients for
performing this facilitating function: Deposit itself is required,
but negotiating rights-retention and making the deposit OA can be
waived if there are reasons to do so. One cannot ask for a better
policy than this, and worldwide adoption will usher in universal OA
as surely as day follows night. -- Stevan Harnad


      From Peter Suber's Open Access News

      At Harvard, waivers apply to OA, not to deposits

      The Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication has
      updated two of the FAQs on the university's OA mandates. 
      I'm not posting all the new language, just the new
      answers to two existing questions:

      From the Policy FAQ:

      What do I have to do to comply with this policy? 

      Here is the one-line answer: ADDENDUM or WAIVER but in
      any case DEPOSIT....

      Whether or not you included the addendum or the publisher
      accepted it, you should always deposit the author's final
      version of your article in the DASH repository....

      From the Procedural FAQ:

      Should I include my article in the Harvard repository
      even if I have gotten a waiver for it?  [PS: 
      Formerly:  May I be able to include...?]

      Yes. The repository accepts not only articles covered by
      the license granted to Harvard under the FAS policy, but
      also articles not covered by the license but for which
      the publisher grants, or the author has otherwise
      secured, sufficient rights. Even if you take a waiver,
      the publisher's agreement may provide, or you may be able
      to negotiate, sufficient rights to allow copies of your
      article to be made publicly available in the Harvard
      repository. The publisher may ask that certain conditions
      be met, some of which the repository can accommodate (for
      example, an embargo period during which the article will
      not be made publicly available)....

      Comment.  The new language makes clear that the Harvard
      policies expect deposit even when faculty members obtain
      waivers and do not or cannot authorize OA.  This is an
      excellent policy and welcome clarification.

      Permanent link to this post  Posted in OA News by Peter
      Suber at 3/07/2009 04:42:00 PM.
Received on Sun Mar 08 2009 - 18:18:42 GMT