The University of Virginia, along with six other Virginia research libraries and many others outside the state, has endorsed MIT’s “Framework for Publisher Contracts”, released earlier this week. The framework sets forth guiding principles for negotiating contracts supporting open-access practices.
More today from Inside Higher Ed:
Who should own and control the dissemination of research? Not academic publishers, according to a new framework developed by library leaders at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The framework, published this week, asserts that control of scholarship and the way in which it is distributed should reside with scholars and their institutions. The document contains six core principles that will be used by MIT as a starting point for future contract negotiations with academic publishers.
The principles aim to ensure that research is available openly and appropriately archived. They also call for fair and transparent pricing of publisher services and say that no author should be forced to give up a copyright in order to publish their work. Instead, authors should be provided with “generous reuse rights,” the framework says.