Princeton Moves to Open Access for Scholarly Works

Given my previous blog entry on Princeton University and its copyright policy, I thought it fair to show the recent change on Princeton’s policy with respect to copyright for scholarly works for faculty. The university approved a change to its copyright policy to encourage open access. Under the policy, the university is granted a non-exclusive right to make the faculty articles available. The university claims its intended purpose is to prevent faculty from giving away all of their rights in publishing the articles in scholarly journals (which charge fees for their works). It is interesting to note that the university claims that the faculty maintains their exclusive rights in all of their works. (Which seems somewhat contrary to the university’s actions with other works – see previous blog entry.) Of course, faculty members may seek waivers. The university makes it seem that they are following in the footsteps of other universities and hopes that it will force journals to amend their publishing contracts thereby preventing granting full rights to the publishers. This is an interesting concept. I do not know how successful it will be or who stands to benefit the most. The FAQ at the end also provides some insight into the potential impact.