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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Universities commit to open-access journal movement

This article discusses the move made by a dozen major American universities towards making academic research material available online free of charge. These universities, which include Duke, Harvard, Cornell, MIT, University of Michigan, and University of California Berkley, among others, have signed the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE), which means that rather than paying $10,000-$20,000 in subscriptions each year, the universities will cover the costs of publishing the articles themselves (about $1,000- $3,000) and will be able to access the other open-access articles. This movement, which is essentially "increased open access, means more opportunities for the research of our faculty and researchers to reach a wide audience and have a meaningful impact on the world,” says Peter Lange, Duke's provost. I think that this movement encompasses everything that is right about today's movement towards technology. Technology should be enabling and encouraging the sharing of knowledge between scholars and learners alike. The increased availability of professors' research will no doubt enrich the education of students and lead to more progress for other professors, as it should.

2 comments:

eschmidt said...

I think that this is a really cool movement. Oftentimes, it is hard to get ahold of information needed to complete research assignments. Especially when at home and not connected to a school network, it is nearly impossible to obtain access to certain academic documents. As Mary pointed out, knowledge is something to be shared. In this age of technology I think this holds true more than ever. I hope that as a student I will be able to gain access to these resources in the future.

Samantha Calhoun said...

This movement is, in my opinion, probably one of the better technology movements right now. Not only do the universities involved lower costs, which could lower tuition, but it also is helping professors with this movement. To be able to easily access another colleague's research is a wonderful tool to help teach not only the professor himself, but also potentially his/her students. I really hope that Wesleyan can become a part of this someday soon.