On February 12, 2008, Harvard Arts and Sciences Faculty voted unanimously to adopt a policy that makes them the first university in the US to mandate open access to its faculty members' research publications.

Read more about this policy:

• Chronicle of Higher Education (2/12/08) (UC access only)
• The New York Times (2/12/08)
• Open Access News
  

Effective April 7, 2008 anyone who publishes an article based upon research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to submit an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central. This groundbreaking policy gives the public full access to taxpayer-funded research within 12 months of its publication.

How to comply? If you have received NIH funding and have had an article published in a peer-reviewed journal, you will need to comply with this policy. The NIH states that the submission process usually takes less than 10 minutes. See the NIH Public Access Policy page for more information on how to comply.

There are a number of journals that submit articles directly to PubMed Central on behalf of their authors. When you publish in one of these journals, no further action is required on your part to comply. See the complete list of Journals That Submit Articles to PubMed Central (compiled by the NIH).

More questions?

• NIH Public Access Policy FAQ
• NIH Manuscript Submission System (from the National Library of Medicine)
• Or send a question to the Library's Scholarly Communication Officer
  

For more background on this topic refer to Hot Topics: NIH Mandate

Advancing the Impact of UC Berkeley Research

The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) supports faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication.

An 18-month pilot program, BRII will subsidize, in various degrees, fees charged to authors who select open access or paid access publication. The pilot will also yield data that can be used to gauge faculty interest in — as well as the budgetary impacts of — these new modes of scholarly communication on the Berkeley campus.

On behalf of the University of California, UC Provost Wyatt R. Hume sent a letter to California Senators Feinstein and Boxer (PDF) expressing support for the NIH policy on public access. Writes Provost Hume: "The provision maximizes research impact and dissemination of new knowledge...."

In the letter, Provost Hume also echoes sentiments of a recent open letter of 26 Nobel laureates urging Congress to enact this "enlightened policy to ensure that the results of research conducted by the NIH can be more readily accessed, shared and built upon to maximize the return on our collective investment in science and to further the public good."

An Ithaka survey published on July 26, 2007 recommends increased roles for universities in publishing their own research outputs and participating in community-wide publishing systems.