Emmett, Ada

Peterson, A. Townsend

English

KU ScholarWorks

Achieving Consensus on the University of KansasOpen-Access PolicyAda Emmett, Associate Librarian for Scholarly Communications, University of KansasTown Peterson, Distinguished Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Senior Curator, Biodiversity Institute,University of KansasIn April of 2009 the University of Kansas (KU) Faculty Senate passed anopen-access policy much like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford faculty’s, adecision that was expanded and improved in a second vote in February2010. With these policy decisions, KU became the first public university to pass a university-wide policy of this sort. A long-standing interest in addressing thesystemic failings of access to university scholarship prepared KU to develop and support such measures.The KU open-access policy is not a new phenomenon for the university.Rather, in 2005, KU faculty governance passed a resolution to encourage greateraccess to scholarship created at the university, under the leadership of thenProvost David Shulenburger. KU also made a key early investment in thedevelopment of an institutional repository, KU ScholarWorks, which is nowserving as the platform for the open-access materials levied by the current policy.The 2009–2010 policy asserts the rights of KU faculty regarding the provisionof worldwide access to their scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles. The policywas the product of a broad, collaborative effort by members of the faculty(including librarians), administration, and faculty governance. KU’s FacultySenate is considered a vibrant and healthy institution within the university. Infall 2008, with a short turnaround time, a small but devoted ad hocsubcommittee of the Faculty Senate Research Committee was charged withdeveloping a policy for the Faculty Senate’s consideration by the end of theacademic year (spring 2009). As part of their work, a Web-based survey wasdistributed to KU faculty to assess their attitudes about and knowledge of openRLI 269 5APRIL  2010 RESEARCH L IBRARY ISSUES:  A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL,  CNI ,  AND SPARCDownloaded from arl.tizrapublisher.comaccess, and two open meetings were held. Hundreds of e-mails were exchangedbetween ad hoc subcommittee members and faculty interested in or concernedabout the policy. Faculty Senators were given an informational presentation onthe issues; later, in spring 2009, a draft policy document with a longerinformational document was shared with all KU faculty prior to a vote on theSenate floor. As part of a series of negotiations with the Faculty Senate, the policy wasapproved overwhelmingly in April 2009, albeit with some revisions to the adhoc subcommittee’s proposals. That policy required that additional informationbe described, outlined, and presented to the Faculty Senate for approval byspring 2010. As a result, a new and larger implementation task force was formedin the summer of 2009, composed of faculty from a range of disciplines andranks (including librarians), university administrators, and arepresentative of the Faculty Senate. All members of the task force were strong supporters of the basic idea of open access, even if not yet well informed of the complex issues. Starting that summer this new task force worked tirelessly toconsult with and inform faculty across campus, seek guidance onpolicy revisions, and outline an implementation plan. The implemen-tation plan described processes that would be undertaken to carry outthe terms of the policy. In an iterative and deliberative process that involvedover 200 faculty and administrators in over 20 public meetings (brown baglunches, open meetings, administrative meetings, departmental meetings, andSenate briefings), faculty were engaged, questions and concerns addressed, andfeedback received. The task force then considered, debated, and summarized theinput received, and wrote new drafts of the policy and implementation plan.“Early adopter” departments and individual faculty members were enlisted totest implementation processes as well.A progress report was presented to the Senate Executive Committee and theFaculty Senate, and was received enthusiastically. In February 2010, final draftsof recommended revisions to the policy and the implementation document wereprovided to the aforementioned bodies. Finally, after some debate on the FacultySenate floor, the policy was approved as submitted and the implementationdocument endorsed. With this approval and endorsement, KU’s open-accesspolicy took full effect.One observer recently noted that KU is now the first university to have anRLI 269 6Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy( C O N T I N U E D )APRIL  2010 RESEARCH L IBRARY ISSUES:  A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL,  CNI ,  AND SPARCAchieving reasonable levels ofconsensus across such a diverse faculty required diplomacy, patience,forethought, and careful crafting ofpresentations and messages to faculty. open-access policy pass twice. The process took two full academic years, andconsiderable investment of time and effort by members of the KU faculty andadministration, including library faculty inleadership roles within the Faculty Senate.Achieving reasonable levels of consensus acrosssuch a diverse faculty required diplomacy,patience, forethought, and careful crafting ofpresentations and messages to faculty. The KU open-access initiative now is in thehands of librarians and staff at the Center forDigital Scholarship within the libraries, with theDean of Libraries having been selected to serve inthe role of “Provost’s Designate” for policy issuesand implementation. The initiative has entered a“build-out” phase, in which more educationalefforts aimed at preparing the remainder of thefaculty for participation will be combined withimplementation of the final details of supportivetechnology (e.g., Web interfaces and reporting modules), rights-managementand submission assistance for faculty. Open-access policy activities andparticipation are expected to ramp up dramatically over the coming two years.© 2010 Ada Emmett and Town PetersonThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/.To cite this article: Ada Emmett and Town Peterson. “Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy.” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 269 (April 2010): 5–7.http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/rli/archive/rli269.shtml.RLI 269 7Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy( C O N T I N U E D )APRIL  2010 RESEARCH L IBRARY ISSUES:  A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL,  CNI ,  AND SPARCAda Emmett served on the ad hoc subcommittee in2008–2009, and subsequently led the 2009–2010implementation task force, which achieved thesecond and final approval of the policy. TownPeterson chaired the aforementioned ad hocsubcommittee in 2008–2009, during which theoriginal policy was approved, and in 2009–2010 heserved as a member of the implementation taskforce. For information and documentation about theprocess at the University of Kansas and about theassistance, both informational and in-person, offeredto faculty, please see http://openaccess.ku.edu/or e-mail Ada Emmett aemmett@ku.edu.

Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy

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Achieving Consensus on the University of Kansas Open-Access Policy

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