It was announced today that systemwide Academic Senate representing the 10 campuses of the University of California system had passed an “open access” policy. The policy will work like this. Before assigning copyright to publishers, all UC faculty will grant the university a non-exclusive license to make the works freely available, provide the university with a … Continue reading »
open-access publishing
No celebrations here: Why the White House public-access policy sucks
I am taking a lot of flak from my friends in the open access community about my sour response to the White House’s statement on public access to papers arising from federally-funded scientific research. While virtually everyone in the open access movement is calling for “celebration” of this “landmark” event, I see a huge missed … Continue reading »
How academia betrayed and continues to betray Aaron Swartz
As news spread last week that digital rights activist Aaron Swartz had killed himself ahead of a federal trial on charges that he illegally downloaded a large database of scholarly articles with the intent to freely disseminate its contents, thousands of academics began posting free copies of their work online, coalescing around the Twitter hashtag … Continue reading »