Optimal Institutional Open Access Mandate: SPARC/SCIENCE-COMMONS White Paper

---

SUMMARY: The SPARC / SCIENCE COMMONS WHITE PAPER on "what faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution" proposes the key modification that will upgrade the Harvard self-archiving mandate to the optimal alternative -- a universal, no-opt-out, Deposit Mandate, plus a licensing clause with an opt-out option -- making the mandate suitable for adoption by all universities and funders worldwide. The crucial difference is that the deposit clause must be no-opt-out -- a true mandate. (I hope Harvard too will consider making the tiny change that would upgrade its mandate to this optimal alternative.) This upgraded mandate, more powerful even than what the White Paper notes, should now also make it more evident why it is so important to integrate university and funder mandates, both converging deposit on (and then harvesting from) the repositories of the institutions that are the providers of all the research (attention NIH!).

---

OPEN DOORS AND OPEN MINDS:
What faculty authors can do to ensure
open access to their work through their institution
A SPARC / SCIENCE COMMONS WHITE PAPER

Bravo to the drafters of this SPARC/SCIENCE-COMMONS White Paper!

It is such a pleasure (and relief!) to be able to endorse this paper unreservedly.

There are distinct signs in the text that the drafters have been attentive, and paying close heed to what has proved empirically to work and not work elsewhere, and why.

Here are the three crucial paragraphs: The first two, I and II (numbering and emphasis added), give the basic context for the landmark Harvard Mandate. But the third (III) gives the key modification that upgrades the Harvard model to the optimal alternative -- a universal no-opt-out Deposit Mandate, plus a licensing clause with an opt-out option -- now suitable for adoption by all universities and funders worldwide:

[I] Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to adopt a policy under which (1) faculty are required to deposit a copy of their scholarly journal articles in an institutional repository and (2) automatically to grant to the University a University License... to make those articles openly accessible on the Internet.
Each of these two components is independently important.

[II] The deposit requirement by itself is valuable because it ensures that the University's collection of Harvard-authored scholarship will grow significantly. Institutions (primarily in Europe) that have adopted similar deposit requirements have experienced high rates of deposit, while those with voluntary policies have had low participation. The deposit requirement is also effective even in the absence of a University License, since a large percentage of journal publishers' copyright agreements already permit authors to post their final manuscript in online institutional archives...

**[III] The Harvard policy allows faculty to waive both the deposit requirement and the University License for a given article upon request.
An alternative approach is to allow faculty to waive the University License only, but not the deposit requirement.
Such a policy would ensure that all faculty articles are digitally archived, but those that are deposited by faculty who waive the University License would not be made openly accessible, unless the faculty member allowed it at a later date. Such a policy maximizes archiving while also maintaining faculty flexibility in negotiating with publishers who do not accept open archiving or accept it only after a lengthy embargo period.

The difference between the above alternative (III) and the current Harvard policy, though a tiny one, is the difference between night and day for the success and power of the mandate, and hence its suitability to serve as a model for other universities (and research funders) worldwide: The difference is that the deposit clause must be no-opt-out -- a true mandate. (It is no-opt-out deposit mandates that have generated the high levels of deposit elsewhere; it is hence crucial to restrict the opt-out option only to the license clause.)

"Upgrade Harvard's Opt-Out Copyright Retention Mandate:
Add a No-Opt-Out Deposit Mandate"

I (and many others) will now strongly support and promote this alternative mandate model, for universal adoption. (I hope Harvard too will consider the tiny change that would be required in order to upgrade its mandate to this optimal alternative.)

The strength and scope of this alternative mandate is, if anything, understated by the White Paper. The no-opt-out Deposit Mandate plus the License Clause is far more powerful even than what the White Paper states, but never mind! What the White Paper states (and its excellent practical suggestions) should be more than enough to encourage the universities of the world to adopt this model mandate.

(One ever so tiny quibble that I feel churlish even to mention, concerns the timing of the deposit, and which draft to deposit: The optimal timing for deposit is immediately upon acceptance of the refereed draft for publication. (There is no earthly reason for science and scholarship to wait till the time of publication.) And the draft to deposit is the author's final, refereed, accepted draft ["postprint"]. Of course that draft is citable [as author/title/journal -- in press]; and the citation can be updated as soon as the full year/volume/issue/page-span information is available. And of course quoted passages can be specified by section-heading plus paragraph number: no overwhelming need for the pagination of the publisher's final PDF.)

"Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates: What? Where? When? Why? How?"

I hope that this optimal university mandate will now also make it more evident why it is so important to integrate university and funder mandates (attention NIH!), so that the university IR is the convergent locus of direct deposit for both:

"How To Integrate University and Funder Open Access Mandates"

"One Small Step for NIH, One Giant Leap for Mankind"

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum