University of Massachusetts Amherst
AC-11: Access to Research

The open access resolution listed below was passed by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Senate on May 10, 2007. The open access repository is ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst.

MOVED: That the Faculty Senate endorse the recommendations of the Research Library Council 39-07 and encourage faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators to be supportive of new and innovative models of scholarly communication and utilize these options whenever possible.

In addition, the Research Council is starting to work through an Open Access Policy for the university. The goal is to have this voted by the Faculty Senate in Spring 2015.

Sen. Doc. No. 07-035
RESOLUTION

The Research Library Council recommends that:

WHEREAS the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s longstanding commitment to the free and open publication, presentation and discussion of research advances the interests of the scholarly community, the faculty individually, and the public, and

WHEREAS the costs of commercially published scholarly journals are continually rising at rates greater than the rate of inflation and higher than the rate of UMass Amherst budget increases, and

WHEREAS the activities of the publishers of these journals directly depend upon the continued participation of faculty at UMass Amherst and similar institutions acting as editors, reviewers, and authors, and

WHEREAS a lasting solution to this problem requires not only interim measures but also a long range plan, and

WHEREAS publication in open access journals and repositories is an increasingly effective option for scholarly communication,

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the University of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Senate:
1. Encourages faculty to become familiar with the pricing and business practices of journals and journal publishers in their specialty, and to support journals and publishers whose pricing and accessibility policies promote broad and continuing access to scholarship.
2. Urges faculty, especially tenured faculty, to exert a positive influence on the direction of scholarly publishing through the choices they make in the submission of papers, the commitment of time to refereeing activities, and participation in editorial work.
3. Encourages faculty and UMass Amherst to support new models for scholarly publishing, including open access journals and archives, disciplinary and institutional repositories and other approaches that enhance the broad dissemination of knowledge while preserving peer review and excellence in scholarship.
4. Urges faculty to consider carefully the copyright provisions of their contracts with publishers, in order to allow them greater freedom to disseminate their work and thereby maximize the impact of their scholarship.
5. Calls upon the UMass Amherst faculty and administration to consider these issues in the evolution of the promotion and tenure system.

MOVED: That the Faculty Senate endorse the recommendations of the Research Library Council 39-07 and encourage faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators to be supportive of new and innovative models of scholarly communication and utilize these options whenever
possible.

The University Libraries support many national open access initiatives. For a comprehensive listing, see http://www.library.umass.edu/open-access-initiatives-at-umass/

One of the most recent initiatives that was implemented last summer is the UMass SOAR ("Supporting Open Access Research") Fund which supports open access publication of University of Massachusetts Amherst peer-reviewed scholarship. This fund is supported by the University Libraries http://www.library.umass.edu/services/scholarly-communication/soar-fund/

119 = (56 departments plus school of nursing; 62 research centers and institutes)