§ 15 — Task forces

(a) By January 1, 2014, each public university shall establish an Open Access to Research Task Force. Each task force shall be appointed by the chairperson of the board of trustees for the public university, with the advice and consent of that board. Each task force shall be comprised of voting members and non-voting members. The voting members shall include, without limitation, members representing the university's library, members representing faculty, including, where applicable, a labor organization that represents faculty at the public university, and members representing university administration. The non-voting members shall include, without limitation, a member representing publishers who publish scholarly journals. In the instance of public universities that have multiple campuses, each campus shall have representation on the task force. The task force shall review current practices and design a proposed policy regarding open access to research articles, based on criteria that are specific to each public university's needs. (b) Each task force shall (i) consider how the public university can best further the open access goals laid out in this Act, whether by creation of an open access policy for the public university, creation of an open access policy for the State, or some other mechanism; (ii) review how peer institutions and the federal government are addressing issues related to open access and ensure that any institutional or statewide policies are consistent with steps taken by federal grant-making agencies; and (iii) consider academic, legal, ethical, and fiscal ramifications of and questions regarding an open access policy, including but not limited to the following: (1) the question of how to preserve the academic freedom of scholars to publish as they wish while still providing public access to research; (2) the design of a copyright policy that meets the needs of the public as well as of authors and publishers; (3) the design of reporting, oversight, and enforcement mechanisms; (4) the cost of maintaining and, where applicable, creating institutional repositories; (5) the potential for collaboration between public universities regarding the use and maintenance of repositories; (6) the potential use of existing scholarly repositories; (7) the fiscal feasibility and benefits and drawbacks to researchers of institutional support for Gold open access fees (where publication costs are covered by author fees rather than by subscription or advertising fees); (8) the differences between academic and publishing practices in different fields and the manner in which these differences should be reflected in an open access policy; (9) the determination of which version of a research article should be made publicly accessible; and (10) the determination of which researchers and which research ought to be covered by an open access policy, including, but not limited to, the question of whether a policy should cover theses and dissertations written by students at public institutions; research conducted by employees of State agencies; research supported by State grants, but not conducted by employees of public institutions or State agencies; research materials digitized using State funding; data collected by covered researchers; research conducted by faculty at institutions that receive Monetary Award Program grants under Section 35 of the Higher Education Student Assistance Act; research conducted by part-time, adjunct, or other non-permanent faculty; research at least one of whose co-authors is covered by the policy; research progress reports presented at professional meetings or conferences; laboratory notes, preliminary data analyses, notes of the author, phone logs, or other information used to produce final manuscripts; or classified research, research resulting in works that generate revenue or royalties for authors (such as books), or patentable discoveries. (c) Each task force shall conduct open meetings with advance notice and shall allow individuals to address the task force regarding open access issues. Notwithstanding any provisions of the Open Meetings Act and subject to feasibility, members of the task force and interested parties may participate by phone or video conference. (d) On or before January 1, 2015, each task force shall adopt a report setting forth its findings and recommendations. These recommendations shall include a detailed description of any open access policy the task force recommends that the public university or State adopt, as well as, in the case of the public university, a plan for implementation. This report must be approved by a majority of the appointed task force voting members. A task force shall also issue minority reports at the request of any member, including a non-voting member. Each report shall be submitted to the board of trustees of the respective public university, the Board of Higher Education, both chambers of the General Assembly, and the Governor. The Board of Higher Education shall publish, on its Internet website, a list of all public universities subject to this Act. The list shall indicate which public universities have submitted the report required pursuant to this subsection (d).

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 98-295, eff. 8-9-13.)