Skip to Content
MIT News magazine

Faculty Vote for Open Access

MIT scholars’ articles to be freely available on the Web.

MIT faculty voted unanimously this spring to make their scholarly articles available free online. Under the new policy–the first faculty-driven, university-wide initiative of its kind in the United States–faculty authors give MIT non­exclusive permission to disseminate their journal articles for open access through DSpace, the open-source software platform developed by the MIT libraries and Hewlett-Packard. Authors may opt out on a paper-by-paper basis. “The vote is a signal to the world that we speak in a unified voice; that what we value is the free flow of ideas,” said Bish Sinyal, then chair of the MIT faculty. Today, authors of scholarly works are required to transfer all or most of their rights to publishers, who limit access to the works through licensing and charge universities increasingly high subscription rates for journals.

“Through this action, MIT faculty have shown great leadership in the promotion of free and open scholarly communication,” says MIT’s director of libraries, Ann Wolpert. “This will allow authors to advance research and education by making their research available to the world.”

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

Everything you need to know about artificial wombs

Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus.

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

Data analytics reveal real business value

Sophisticated analytics tools mine insights from data, optimizing operational processes across the enterprise.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.