Bill on opening up academic research advances to floor | News-Gazette.com

"Legislation that would set up task forces at each of Illinois' nine public universities to establish policies for open access to research articles published by faculty members and researchers was approved Tuesday by the Senate Higher Education Committee. It now moves to the Senate floor. The bill, SB 1900, is sponsored by Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston. 'The question basically is, What should we do about the fact that the research produced on the campuses by researchers is something that we technologically have the capacity to make available online, but is not always made online?' Biss said. Fifty-six public and private universities in North America, including Purdue, Washington University in St. Louis, Princeton and MIT, have voluntarily adopted open-access policies, Biss said. The task forces his bill would create would have to produce by the end of 2014 'a report about what they as an institution or we as a state can do to further open access. The goal of this bill is to leave a lot of control on the campuses,' Biss said. A representative of the Association of American Publishers spoke out against the bill, saying that the task forces should include representatives of publishers of academic journals. Biss said each task force could decide whether to include publishers or other members. 'The makeup of the task force is left very, very loose,' he said. 'It's up to the discretion of the board of trustees of the institution.' The only mandate, he said, is that there be representatives of the administration, faculty and university library. When asked why publishers would not be included, he said, 'I don't think it's appropriate to be telling the universities, as they are developing policies for their campuses, that they must have as a voting member of their task force someone from an external entity.'"