The University of California San Diego has signed an Expression of Interest (EoI) to adopt the principles of Open Access 2020 (OA2020), an international effort to make all scholarly publications freely and immediately available to everyone by replacing the current costly subscription-based approach with transparent, sustainable funding models.
UC San Diego joins educational institutions across the world that have signed the OA2020 EoI, including the University of California (UC) campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside and San Francisco. By signing the EoI, these universities have indicated a commitment to advancing open access (OA) through many possible mechanisms.
“Signing our Expression of Interest to join the OA2020 initiative is a strong affirmation of UC San Diego’s commitment to open access,” said Elizabeth H. Simmons, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UC San Diego. “The principles of open access are central to UC San Diego’s mission as a public research university: to disseminate scholarship and research results and translate scientific discoveries into practical knowledge and innovations that benefit California and society at large.”
When an institution commits to signing the OA2020 EoI, it agrees to make a good faith effort to devise and implement practical strategies and actions for attaining reduced barriers in accessing and reusing information. This particular movement — initiated and led by the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich — provides a flexible framework for each institution to define for themselves how they will repurpose their journal subscription funds to support OA publishing. UC San Diego’s goal is to ensure that the resulting actions in support of open access are feasible, sustainable and in the best interests of its faculty. To achieve this, the university will undertake outreach efforts that keep the lines of communication open between the Library, campus leadership, faculty, researchers and scholars.
“OA is about equitable access to information and honoring our commitment to educating the people of California and the world,” said Robert Horwitz, chair of the UC San Diego Academic Senate and professor in the Department of Communication. “Signing the EoI is an exciting opportunity for a leading research institution such as UC San Diego to expand access to our scholarship.”
The UC system has long been a leader in the open access movement. In 2013 the Systemwide Academic Senate acknowledged its commitment to open access by adopting an open access policy covering faculty senate members at all 10 campuses. Recognizing the benefits this brought faculty, two years later the University of California formalized a new policy to expand open access rights and responsibilities from just senate faculty, who were covered by previous policies, to all UC employees.
