Open Access: Problems of Collective Action and Promises of Civic Engagement

Open Access: Problems of Collective Action and Promises of Civic Engagement

Harvard recently passed a sweeping mandate encouraging all faculty members to license their scholarly articles to a free and open repository. This panel examines the politics of getting such a mandate passed, the civic values of promoting collective engagement at an institutional level, and the social role that universities and libraries might play in the larger world.

Questions:

1. How did we do it? Interviews with Harvard faculty re collective action problems and solutions; presentation of empirical evidence re how things are coming together.

2. How can we expand it (e.g., to other departments, other domains)? Compare to other existing/proposed university and institutional proposals, specifically MIT and NIH; analogize to free culture's own efforts to encourage students to post theses online. How can other universities follow suit?

3. What does open access mean for the role of the university both as a political community and as an actor in various global communities? Draw analogies to OpenCourseWare and OLPC.