Harvard University has decided to require faculty members to deposit all published articles in an open-access online repository. The announcement comes with the standard (and well deserved) attacks on journal publishers, but an even greater dose of hypocrisy wrapped in lip service about dissemination of knowledge.
The proposal begins with the preamble:
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible.
An exception in the policy is made, however, for articles sold for profit. Whose profit? Obviously, not the profit of journal publishers.
One faculty proponent of the open-access policy explained the policy’s implications:
In place of a closed, privileged, and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn.
Certainly, this noble institution would lead only by example, demanding of others no more than it demands of itself! I rushed to the websites of the Harvard University Press and Harvard Business Case Studies where they would now be offering free downloads of books and teaching cases, disseminating this knowledge as broadly as possible.
Surprisingly (okay, not really), I found instead:
- A popular one page classroom example on the strategic implication of rebates costs $7 per student! That’s a much higher per-page cost than most academic journals.
- In sardonic irony, a Harvard teaching note titled Should Nonprofits Seek Profits? can lead to spirited classroom discussion only after depositing several hundred dollars into Harvard’s coffers.
I propose a new tagline for Harvard:
 |
Harvard.
Standing on principle (when its not our principal) |
A note to Harvard: the above tagline is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.