Kansas Is First Public University to Go Open Access

The University of Kansas is becoming the first public university–following moves by all or parts of institutions such as Harvard and Stanford Universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology–to make all faculty journal articles available free in digital form. Chancellor Robert Hemenway proposed the policy, which was endorsed by the Faculty Senate. The articles will be placed in KU ScholarWorks, a digital repository. Open access advocates see the creation of such repositories as a way to spread knowledge at a time that many journal subscriptions are too expensive for many academic institutions or individuals.