Saturday, July 29. 2006
Long-standing members of the American Scientist Open Access Forum will recognize some exceedingly familiar themes voiced (at long last) in the following excerpts from the very welcome and helpful 2006 Open Letter by 25 US University Provosts in support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). But having now expressed their support for the federal self-archiving mandate, there is absolutely no need for the provosts to wait for the Act's adoption to act! This would be an excellent time for each to put their support into practice by adopting an institutional self-archiving mandate of their own, at their own institution (and registering it in ROARMAP for other institutions to emulate).
An Open Letter to the Higher Education Community:
We believe that [FRPAA] represents a watershed and provides an opportunity for the entire U.S. higher education and research community to draw upon their traditional partnerships and collaboratively realize the unquestionably good intentions of the Bill's framers - broadening access to publicly funded research in order to accelerate the advancement of knowledge and maximize the related public good...
...we agree with [FRPAA's] basic premise that enabling the broadest possible access to new ideas resulting from government-funded research promotes progress, economic growth, and public welfare. Furthermore, we know that, when combined with public policy such as FRPAA proposes, the Internet and digital technology are powerful tools for removing access barriers and enabling new and creative uses of the results of research....
Collectively, our universities engage in billions of dollars of funded research. On average, approximately 50% of our research funding originates with the federal government. That public investment - estimated at over $55 billion for the research covered by FRPAA - is complemented by our own institutional investments in research units, laboratories, libraries, and the faculty and staff whose expertise permeates them. FRPAA has the potential to enable the maximum downstream use of those investments...
Each month the evidence mounts that open access to research through digital distribution increases the use of that research and the visibility of its creators. Widespread public dissemination levels the economic playing field for researchers outside of well-funded universities and research centers and creates more opportunities for innovation....
FRPAA is good for education and good for research. It is good for the American public, and it promotes broad, democratic access to knowledge...
SIGNATORIES:
Arkansas State: Susan D. Allen, Vice Chancellor for Research and Academic Affairs
California: Wyatt R Hume, Executive Vice President & Provost
Carnegie Mellon: Mark S. Kamlet, Provost & Senior Vice President
Case Western Reserve: John L. Anderson, Provost and University Vice President
Dartmouth: Barry P. Scherr, Provost
Harvard: Steven E. Hyman, Provost
Illinois/Chicago: R. Michael Tanner, Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Illinois/Urbana-Champaign: Linda Katehi, Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Indiana: Michael McRobbie, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Iowa: Michael J. Hogan, Executive Vice President and Provost
Michigan: Teresa A. Sullivan, Provost & Executive Vice President
Michigan State: Kim Wilcox, Provost
Minnesota: E. Thomas Sullivan, Executive Vice President & Provost
Northwestern: Lawrence B. Dumas, Provost
Ohio State: Barbara R. Snyder, Executive Vice President & Provost
Pennsylvania State: Rodney A. Erickson, Executive Vice President & Provost
Purdue: Sally Mason, Provost
Rochester: Charles E. Phelps, Provost
Rutgers: Philip Furmanski, Executive VP for Academic Affairs
Syracuse: Eric F. Spina, Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost
Texas A&M University: David B. Prior, Executive Vice President and Provost
Vanderbilt: Nicholas S. Zeppos, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Virginia Polytechnic: Mark G. McNamee, University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Washington University - St. Louis: Edward S. Macias, Executive Vice Chancellor
Wisconsin-Madison: Patrick Farrell, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Some Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Threads:
" Chron. High. Ed. 18 September on Cal Tech & Copyright" (Sep 1998)
" Scholars' Forum: A New Model For Scholarly Communication" (Mar 1999)
" The Need To Re-Activate the Provosts' Initiative" (Feb 2001)
" Written evidence for UK Select Committee's Inquiry into Scientific Publications" (Dec 2003)
" What Provosts Need to Mandate" (Dec 2003)
" A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy" (Oct 2004)
" Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!" (Jan 2005)
" Maximising the Return on UK's Public Investment in Research" (Sep 2005)
" Generic Rationale and Model for University Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate" (Mar 2006)
" How to Counter All Opposition to the FRPAA Self-Archiving Mandate" (Sep 2006)
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Foru
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