Four Leading Academic Associations Call for Action

An article in the March/April 2009 issue of EDUCAUSE reports on a meeting held by four academic associations: the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of American Universities, the Coalition for Networked Information, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The goal of the meeting was "to identify actions that should be taken to expand the dissemination of the full range of products of the university community’s research and scholarship." The primary recommendation to emerge from the discussion was as follows:

Campuses should initiate discussions involving administration and faculty about modifying current practices and/or its intellectual property policies such that the university retains a set of rights sufficient to ensure that broad dissemination of the research and scholarly work produced by its faculty occurs.

Among the specific recommended strategies for universities were the promotion and enhancement of institutional repositories and support for faculty seeking open access clauses in their contracts with publishers.