Harvard to post peer-reviewed research papers online

This week, Harvard began requiring all researchers to publish their findings in journals or other media that would allow for subsequent posting to an online repository. The Chronicle of Higher Education describes this new effort to make research findings more accessible than traditional print publications.

The policy will allow Harvard authors to publish in any journal that permits posting online after publication. According to Mr. Suber [an open-access activist with Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group in Washington], about two-thirds of pay-access journals allow such posting in online repositories.

The Harvard computer science professor who proposed the policy explained,

the decision “should be a very powerful message to the academic community that we want and should have more control over how our work is used and disseminated.”

Unlike MIT's Open Courseware initiative which makes classroom materials available for free online, this policy only affects the publication of research findings at the university.