Ed School Faculty Endorse Open Access

Joining a recent trend of schools endorsing open access scholarship, faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to make their scholarly articles available to the public free of charge.

Under the new policy, faculty articles will now be circulated through the online Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard repository now being developed by the Office for Scholarly Communication. Though currently in testing stages and available only within the University, the database is expected to opened to the general public by late summer or early fall. Faculty members will have the option of blocking public access to articles they write.

This move at GSE follows similar policies already approved by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, the Kennedy School, and a smattering of peer universities including MIT and the Stanford School of Education.

According to John W. Collins III, GSE Librarian, allowing open access is universally beneficial. He said it will improve the quality of education worldwide, circulate faculty members’ works, and facilitate scholarly dialogue. He added that the decision has received a positive response from students and people outside the University.

Professor Stuart M. Shieber, faculty director of the Office for Scholarly Communication, said he perceived no drawbacks to the new policy.

“It is fundamental to the role of the university in society that access should be as broad as possible,” he said.

But he added that some people believe open access is unviable because they think it could affect the business model of subscription-based journals, an idea he called “misguided” in a blog post on the topic.

While some faculty members declined to comment because they said they did not feel knowledgeable enough about the new policy, Professor Paul K. Harris said he was pleased with the decision to allow open access.

“I’m positive about it. I think it will allow faculty to make their publications more easily available,” he said.

In a continuation of its efforts to disseminate faculty members’ scholarly work, the Office for Scholarly Communication has begun a dialogue with all Harvard schools to consider approving open access policies.

—Staff writer Niha S. Jain can be reached at nsjain@fas.harvard.edu.