What is open access? Open access (OA) is a term generally used to describe materials that are in public domain, i.e., that any member of the public can access easily, usually online, and at no cost. The UAlbany policy Matthew C. Ingram contains definitions, and its more detailed definition of OA is: “scholarship that is freely available online, free of cost, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions, permitting users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles for any lawful purpose.” Thus, OA makes research and scholarship more freely and easily accessible to campus community and to broader local, state, national, and international community. Why is OA important? In contrast to OA, many scholarly materials are owned by commercial publishers and are only available behind a pay wall. Even academic publishers, like university presses, behave as commercial publishers this way. Any member of the general public cannot access these materials without paying a fee, and institutions like UAlbany pay large amounts of money so that campus community can access materials. Even after paying for access to the material, there are strict limitations on copying or otherwise sharing material, and if one has paid for electronic access to material, there may also be limitations on printing, downloading, or redistributing material. In short, traditional publishing restricts access to scholarship, and open access seeks to increase accessibility. This goal is arguably more important
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Rockefeller College News Magazine I Fall 2021
for scholars at public institutions, where public funding sustains scholarship, and where institutional goals are aligned with increasing access to higher education. For example, SUNY’s mission is, in part, “to provide to the people of New York educational services of the highest quality, with the broadest possible access…”, and UAlbany’s mission is, in part, “to open opportunities—locally and globally—with a single-minded purpose: To empower our students, faculty, and campus communities to author their own success.” Why did UAlbany create an open access policy now? In March 2018, the SUNY Chancellor issued a resolution directing each campus to do two things: (1) develop an open access policy, and (2) create a searchable repository. UAlbany already had an institutional repository in place (Scholars Archive) but the open access policy was missing. The new policy completes the university’s response to the directive. Starting in Fall 2018, Billie Franchini, then Chair of the Libraries, Information Systems, and Computing (LISC) Council of the University Senate, gathered a diverse group of staff, faculty, and students into an Open Access Policy Working Group, of which I was chair. Since then, we debated the contents of the policy, reviewed similar policies elsewhere, drafted a policy, met with multiple groups on campus, and moved the policy through the various stages of university governance. But for the pandemic, this process would have likely been completed in 2020. What is UAlbany’s OA Policy? An OA policy establishes a set of expectations and practices to encourage and expand access to scholarship generated by campus authors. The key
