What lasts longer than a handout? An online version of a handout! To see an online version of the handout we distributed at the open access teach-in at the Free University of NYC on May Day, go to https://openatcuny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/oa-academic-publishing-the-free-university-of-nyc/. As always, feel free to use, edit, distribute, etc.!
“Take it. Break it. Share it. Love it.”
On Mad Men, Peggy’s pitch for Popsicle was “Take it. Break it. Share it. Love it.” I say the same to you (well, whether you’ll love it is debatable) about this slideshow about open access scholarly publishing. I’ve presented variations of this slideshow (sometimes with the very awesome Maura Smale from City Tech, sometimes with the also awesome Margaret Smith from NYU, sometimes by myself) at a number of conferences and meetings, and now I present it to you to do whatever you’d like with it. Use it. Revise it. Share it. Decide you hate it and make something better.
(The slideshow didn’t entirely survive the migration to Slideshare. To see everything properly formatted and to watch the xtranormal video on slide 3, go to the original Google Docs presentation at http://tinyurl.com/oapn-cuny. Also, in the “Actions” menu, you can choose to create a copy of the slides or download the slides as a PPT or PDF file.)
As we spread the word about open access, we have to talk to a lot of people. Let’s not reinvent the wheel each time. If you have or know of any good materials for promoting open access, please post them in the comments!
CUNY Institutional Repository: Coming Soon-ish?
Good news for open access at CUNY! Last week, CUNY’s University Faculty Senate passed a resolution in support of the creation of a CUNY-wide institutional repository. You may be familiar with subject repositories such as arXiv (physics and other sciences) and SSRN (social sciences), where researchers in specific disciplines upload their articles, making them freely available to everyone. However, not all fields have robust subject repositories, and institutional repositories are crucial for reaching the goal of 100% open access to scholarly literature. A CUNY institutional repository will give CUNY faculty and other researchers a permanent place to post their articles (and other work), regardless of field.
You might wonder, “Are researchers allowed to make their scholarly journal articles freely available online?” Very often, the answer is YES. A majority of journal publishers allow self-archiving of this kind; to check the policy of a specific publisher or journal, go to http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/. (Even if a journal doesn’t automatically allow it, authors can negotiate their rights with the SPARC Author Addendum.)
To clarify, the UFS resolution of support is not an open access policy along the lines of those passed at Harvard, MIT, Princeton, etc., in which faculty automatically grant their university a nonexclusive right to distribute their articles (with the ability to opt out, if necessary or desired). It is my ardent hope that CUNY will pass such a policy in the not-too-distant future, but a vote in favor of an institutional repository is a huge step in the right direction. Next step, actually create the institutional repository!
The full text of the UFS resolution is below:
WHEREAS there is a need for open-access models to assist libraries and institutions in dealing with the budgetary challenges presented by the ever-increasing costs charged by journal publishers; and
WHEREAS open-access institutional repositories do not replace traditional publishing but rather serve as an additional venue for maximizing access to the fruits of faculty research; and
WHEREAS numerous universities have created open-access institutional repositories and associated policies, and many more universities are currently working toward such repositories and policies; and
WHEREAS the City University of New York is committed to educating the public and making knowledge accessible and affordable; therefore let it be
RESOLVED that the University Faculty Senate supports the development of an open-access institutional repository for the City University of New York, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that in accordance with best practices, guidelines for depositing materials into the CUNY repository should be created by faculty appointed by the UFS working with the Office of Library Services and should include recommendations to faculty to deposit finished journal articles, preprints, chapters, etc. The guidelines should encourage but not require faculty to contribute to the repository, and ensure that depositing a work into the repository will not affect the author’s copyright.
