MIT Reaffirms Commitment to Open Access

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has published its final recommendations on how to increase the open sharing of MIT publications, data, software and educational materials.

An open-access task force was convened in 2017 to update and revise MIT’s open-access policies. The task force published its final recommendations last week. A draft set of recommendations was released in March 2019 for public comment.

The task force recommend that MIT ratify a set of open-access principles, create an open-access fund for monographs and work with department heads to encourage open practices across all disciplines. The existing MIT Faculty Open Access Policy will be expanded to include students, staff, postdoctoral fellows and research staff.

“Scholarship serves humanity best when it is available to everyone,” said Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, who co-chaired the task force with MIT Libraries director Chris Bourg. “These recommendations reinforce MIT’s leadership in open access to scholarship.”