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Topics winter 2010

Uncovering Open Access


By Michael Patrick Rutter & James Clyde Sellman

www.seas.harvard.edu
to the general public,
“doing science” is all about
discovery. but in truth,
that’s only half the picture.
consider the experience of an
obscure nineteenth-century
augustinian monk...

from 1856 to 1863, gregor


mendel cultivated and
observed 29,000 pea plants
and managed to unlock some
of the secrets of heredity,
including the concepts of
dominant and recessive traits.
In 1865, Mendel presented his findings The fate of Mendel’s research is a sharp
as a two-part lecture, “Experiments on Plant reminder that aside from discovery—i.e.,
Hybridization,” before the tiny Natural History the findings—science is also emphatically
Society of Brünn (present-day Brno, Czech about dissemination, that is, access to (and
Republic). A year later, he published his find- application of) those findings. Open access
ings in the society’s Proceedings, of which 115 seeks, through the power of the Internet, to
copies are known to have been distributed. make scholarly materials freely available to
With that, his painstaking work disappeared— the world. No passwords. No subscription fees.
virtually without a trace—for 35 years. In sci- And today, it is perhaps the hottest flashpoint
entific terms, an eon. Biologists struggled on, in science publication—with Harvard, and an
fruitlessly seeking to explain heredity through unlikely firebrand named Stuart Shieber ’81,
blending theories or with Darwin’s earnest but right in the thick of things.
wrongheaded notion of “pangenesis.” At last,
in 1900, Mendel’s work was rediscovered and
helped spark the modern science of genetics.

With the ability to watch


lectures from courses like
CS 50 on mobile devices,
the role print plays in a
student’s life is changing.

1
Shieb
an seas computer scientist and tireless advocate
of open access, crafted an open-access policy for
scholarship that the harvard faculty of arts and
sciences (fas) adopted, unanimously, in february
2008. thoughtful, soft-spoken, almost serene, he
hardly seems suited to the role of revolutionary.

Shieber, an SEAS computer scientist and tire- But why all the fuss? Hasn’t the Internet
less advocate of open access, crafted an open- already put worlds of knowledge just a mouse-
access policy for scholarship that the Harvard click away? Shieber points out that, contrary
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) adopted, to conventional wisdom, academics’ access
unanimously, in February 2008. Thoughtful, to relevant scholarly information is actually
soft-spoken, almost serene, he hardly seems decreasing. The problem isn’t with the technol-
suited to the role of revolutionary. Richard ogy for disseminating knowledge but rather
Poynder, an astute observer of the chang- with the increasingly inability of institutions
ing landscape of journalism and publishing, and individuals to pay for access. Harvard’s
suggested in his blog that this “poster child” policy seems almost elegant in its simplic-
for open access might lack the necessary grit ity. “Under the new policy,” Suber explains,
to push the movement forward. Undeterred, “faculty members retain some of the rights
Shieber keeps on pushing. The heart of his they formerly gave to publishers, and they use
proposal: “Each Faculty member grants to the those rights to authorize open access.”
President and Fellows of Harvard College per-
mission to make available his or her scholarly For academic publishers, it was an unprec-
articles and to exercise the copyright in those edented shot across the bow. Moreover, the
articles.” Don’t be fooled by the matter-of-fact School of Education and the Law School
language: this is pure dynamite. It grabbed quickly adopted similar policies. And on
headlines and roiled the Internet, hailed by September 15, Cornell University, Dartmouth
some as “bold and visionary” even as a “shot College, MIT, and the University of California
heard ’round the academic world.” at Berkeley all joined Harvard in a general
compact to support open-access publishing
While other universities’ open-access policies by providing administrative, technical, and
had been premised on individual faculty monetary support. Change is in the air, but
members opting in, in Harvard’s policy, the where is it headed—and what does it portend?
presumption is that faculty will make their To understand the controversy over open
work freely available, unless—for a given access you need to untangle a complex back-
publication—a faculty member opts out. Ac- story, one that involves the long history of
cording to Peter Suber, a leading proponent the academy, the rise of scholarly publishing,
of open access and currently a visiting fellow and the federal funding of research since the
at the Law School’s Berkman Center for Second World War—with side trips into the
Internet and Society, it’s “the best university rise of the Internet and the changing role of
policy anywhere.” A newly created Office for libraries. Even human (or, at least, faculty)
Scholarly Communications (OSC), headed nature figures into the mix. It’s complicated
by Shieber, was tasked with administering the but essential to understanding where we are
policy, which includes archiving of publica- …and where we’re likely to be headed.
tions in a central repository, known as DASH,
or Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard.

2
eber,
Topics | Winter 2010

Movable type breaches


the ivory tower
Prior to the Enlightenment, the university the digital revolution back to a collection of
was a very different place from today’s research- smudged metal blocks. But compare the ardu-
centered institution. Medieval universities, ous task of hand-copying and illuminating a
such as Oxford (ca. 1167), had a focus that manuscript with the relative ease of setting
was largely religious, and for centuries their (and editing) type, and suddenly it makes
efforts at dissemination likewise stressed sense as a game-changer.
religion: Harvard, for example, was founded
in 1636 mainly for the purpose of training Moreover, with the widespread adoption of
ministers. But gradually, under the influence modern printing, the gates of academia began
of humanist principles that emerged during to crack open. Universities began by publish-
the Renaissance, the university began a meta- ing Bibles and other religious works but soon
morphosis that would ultimately yield today’s the scope of their activity began to expand,
modern research institution. And publishing diversifying into dictionaries, biographies,
lay at the heart of the transformation. music, and journals. Universities learned that
to preserve the knowledge of their faculty,
Oxford University Press (OUP) was one of the they needed to disseminate it: knowledge
very earliest modern academic publishers. As and access to knowledge went hand in hand.
the OUP website explains, it emerged as part Thus universities also turned to publishing
of “the information technology revolution of academic materials, and by the eighteenth
the late fifteenth century, which began with century, many were publishing their own
the invention of printing from movable type.” research journals.
Lead letters, tucked into wooden shadowbox-
es. There’s something charming about linking

3
despite the growth of university
presses and the burgeoning of scientific
activity, research findings continued to
be surprisingly inaccessible.

Commercial publishers
tiptoe onto the scene
In contrast, commercial publishers entered In the United States, Science Magazine (later
the scholarly landscape more gradually. Then simply Science), played a similar role as a
as now, commercial publishing was highly commercial journal for broad-based scien-
competitive, and publishers, highly risk- tific knowledge. And, like Nature, it faced
averse. In a perceptive essay on American economic challenges. Backed by Thomas
university presses, Peter Givler observed that Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, the
leaving the publication of “scholarly, highly journal began rolling off the presses in 1880.
specialized research” to the commercial mar- But it barely survived a series of financial
ketplace “would be, in effect, to condemn it crises before gaining a measure of stability by
to languish unseen.” Commercial publishers, partnering with the nascent AAAS. Science and
however, had the necessary distributional mus- Nature elevated, even liberated, scholarly com-
cle. Despite the growth of university presses munication, presenting a broad overview of
and the burgeoning of scientific activity, discoveries to anyone willing to pay the then
research findings continued to be surprisingly relatively small subscription fee. Moreover,
inaccessible. Well into the nineteenth century, many early commercial scholarly publishers,
much of the exchange of scientific informa- like Macmillan, valued the dissemination of
tion took place behind closed doors—in knowledge as well as profit-making.
Victorian lounges of members-only organiza-
tions, like the Royal Society in England, or in But what’s the relevance of Victorian publish-
the growing number of local natural history ing efforts to open-access scholarship? The is-
or scientific societies. Though many of the sues that were present at the outset of modern
local societies published Proceedings, they and scholarship and scholarly publishing—how
their publications actually limited access to to distribute and archive knowledge and, no
research findings—as with Mendel and the less important, how to pay for it—haven’t
115 known copies of the 1866 Proceedings of the changed. They’re the same challenges that
Natural History Society of Brünn. we confront today. From hand-illuminated,
gilt-edged manuscripts to lead type and steam-
Such efforts at least reflected an awareness powered presses to silicon and bits and bytes,
of the need to disseminate knowledge. In the issue has always been access—who has it,
the United States, for example, the Ameri- what does it cost, and is it sufficient?
can Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) was founded in 1848. And
the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard
(the progenitor of SEAS) was established
in 1846−47. In a letter to the University, Ab-
bott Lawrence—whose gift funded the new
school—voiced his concern “that we have
been somewhat neglectful in the cultivation
and encouragement of the scientific portion
of our national economy.” Among those
neglecting the nation’s scientific enterprise
were, with few exceptions, publishers. But
by the late nineteenth century, commercial
scholarly publishing began to emerge in
something approaching its modern sense.
In 1869, for example, publisher Alexander
Macmillan founded Nature in Britain. (For
some time, it survived mainly as a personal
labor of love: according to the Nature website,
Macmillan “tolerated a loss-making venture
for three decades.”)

4
The Gordon McKay Library
at SEAS consists of
120,000 volumes and over
600 subscription journals.
Photo by Eliza Grinnell.
Scholars and publishers—a partnership in peril

By the latter half of the twentieth century— Taking advantage of the bustling research
as scientific enterprise and college and univer- activity, economies of scale offered by
sity enrollments burgeoned—it appeared that advances in printing technology, and their
researchers and publishers had achieved a well-established editorial and production
lasting partnership. Much of the credit, ironi- skills, commercial publishers now seized on
cally, goes to the Second World War. The war science as a viable, paying venture. New fields
highlighted the strategic importance not just blossomed—computer science, cognitive sci-
of science but of access to scientific informa- ence, neuroscience—each accompanied by
tion. Early on, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the requisite specialty journals. In many ways,
Prime Minister Winston Churchill reached publishers (and particularly the editors of
an informal agreement that the United States such journals) joined academics as partners in
and Great Britain would share (at no cost) any the scholarly enterprise. Faculty members pro-
scientific development of potential military vided the content; publishers lined up volun-
value. The federal government also collabo- teer peer-reviewers, arranged for promotion
rated as never before with universities and and distribution, and helped hone and polish
the private sector, above all in the Manhattan the manuscripts. Indeed, scholarly publishers
Project and the building of the atomic bomb in many respects helped to shape fields. They
but also in a host of other developments in- generally also demanded that authors cede
cluding radar, sonar, synthetic rubber, nylon, their entire copyright interest. (Publishers,
the proximity fuse, and napalm (developed however, still pay nothing for these rights.)
in 1942−43 by a Harvard team headed by
chemistry professor Louis F. Fieser). This fed- The partnership was seen as analogous to
eral engagement in scientific research didn’t the role of art museums. If people wanted to
end with peacetime; indeed, it continued to see the paintings, they had to pay to enter.
expand. And if artists wanted others to see their art,
they needed to entrust that work to the gallery
Thus, Edwin Purcell, Gerhard Gade University or museum. Given the small number of sub-
Professor, Emeritus, and co-winner of the 1952 scribers and the high quality of the value-add-
Nobel Prize in Physics, was instrumental in ed editorial work, the cost of access seemed
developing the principles of nuclear magnetic justified. And before the rise of instant
resonance (NMR). In the coming decades, online publishing, how else could academics
the applied sciences continued to blossom. At circulate their work in a form more durable
Harvard alone, Harold Thomas, Jr., whose last than an oral presentation? Particularly in the
position was as Gordon McKay Professor of last 20 years, Shieber says, “demand has been
Civil and Sanitary Engineering, spearheaded inelastic, and [the publishers] clearly took
the famed Harvard Water Program; Ivan strong advantage of that.” Which was fine as
Sutherland conducted research that resulted far as academics were concerned: they “never
in the first head-mounted display, one of the really knew the direct costs” because university
first attempts at virtual reality; and the Univer- libraries picked up the tab.
sity became an early node on the ARPANET,
the precursor of the Internet.

6
e
Topics | Winter 2010

Unfortunately, for both academics and In fact, prohibitive subscription costs and,
publishers, the honeymoon was short-lived. more recently, budget cuts have forced many
Well before the current economic storm, the libraries to permanently cut back on journal
pricing model for scholarly publication was subscriptions, online and print. Even in the
beginning to break down. Publishers charged best of times, Harvard (which maintains one
ever-higher subscription fees. (Institutional of the largest libraries in the world) hasn’t
online subscriptions to journals like Brain Re- been able to subscribe to every journal. Today,
search can now run as high as $20,000 a year.) however, the situation is significantly worse.
Libraries and universities bridled at the rising One problem, explains Martha “Marce”
costs but initially did little to push back. While Wooster, head of SEAS’s Gordon McKay
individual institutions might negotiate better Library, is the lack of any “algorithm a librar-
or modified deals with publishers, overall, ian can use to determine what journals to
libraries have found it a losing game. keep or cut,” whether based on price or need
for access. In some cases, publishers now tie
For example, in 2007 the Max Planck Institute multiple journals together, taking advantage
stopped subscribing to Springer’s journals in of online portals. And while you can often
protest of the high cost, but, as one version hand-tailor journal subscriptions for your insti-
of the story goes, researchers demanded the tution (only requesting access to the particular
return of their journal collections. A year later journals faculty would need), the overall cost
the Institute resubscribed after negotiating savings relative to buying the entire package
a time-limited “experimental” mix of open is limited or nonexistent. The upshot is that—
access and subscription models with Springer. aside from interlibrary loan or direct cor-
Under the agreement, all authors from Max respondence with researchers—the only way
Planck gained access to 1200 journals and had for a faculty member to see certain research
the costs waived for Springer’s Open Choice findings is by paying the publisher’s going
program that “offers authors to have their rate. As libraries face continued cutbacks, this
journal articles made available with full open will present more and more of a challenge for
access in exchange for payment of a basic the scholarly enterprise.
fee (‘article processing charge’).” A sign of
progress for sure, but a limited one as Max
Planck still had to foot a substantial bill (the
financial terms were not disclosed) and other
institutions and readers remain on the hook
for substantial subscription fees, as the vast
majority of Springer’s content remains locked.

er il 7
Rethinking the model

The Internet, of course, was the final kink In the case of many open-access journals,
in the chain of events that imperiled the these costs are shifted to the author’s rather
academic−commercial publishing partnership. than the readers’ side. On the highest end, a
That might not seem surprising. The Web flagship PLoS journal, for example, charges
has radically revised much of life, includ- authors around $3,000 for the publication of
ing academia. At SEAS, for example, CS 50, an article. That makes subscription-based pub-
“Introduction to Computer Science I,” and QR lications, which typically don’t charge authors
48, “Bits,” are available online. And instead for publication, much more attractive for many
of a textbook, the introductory Life Sciences authors.
sequence now makes use of a multimedia
showcase. MIT’s open courseware initiative In addition, it’s important to appreciate the
is a permanent, ongoing program to make value added by commercial publishers. Partic-
available—free and online—much of MIT’s ularly in an age of instant publication, Shieber
course content. But curiously, while we can ac- argues, “you need people that do what editors
complish more and more online (sending holi- and journals do now.” This includes managing
day cards, managing our bank accounts, re- the peer-review process, performing editorial
newing driver’s licenses, etc.), the knowledge and production work, and distributing and
produced by research universities like Harvard archiving the final product. No less important,
has remained comparatively inaccessible, in “there’s the branding and imprimatur,” some-
a sort of cyberspace lockdown. How did that thing that happens “more or less as a side
happen? How was it allowed to happen? effect” of publication in a particular journal.

Before its emergence as a full-fledged social The Web has made it possible to “unbundle”
networking and shopping tool, the Internet these activities: peer review could happen
served university researchers. But if the cur- in an online forum; editorial and production
rent commercial model for publication goes work could be done almost anywhere. But the
unchallenged (leaving publishers as gatekeep- activities themselves (and their coordination)
ers to Web-based scholarship), the Internet remain essential, and they come at a price.
could become more a barrier than a catalyst Unfortunately, Wooster says, Web technol-
for the scholarly enterprise. “If the publisher ogy has yet to put scholarly publishing “on
owns and controls the scholarly content,” an economic basis that’s not dysfunctional.”
Shieber says, “there’s no way to prevent that As counterintuitive as it sounds, the shift of
publisher from limiting access and charging for scholarship from print to Web (unlike music’s
that access.” In the early days of the Internet, move from CDs to MP3s) has resulted in
the cost of digitizing print materials was far significantly higher prices, despite doing away
from trivial, and publishers could justify high with a raft of standard printing costs. Shieber
online-subscription fees as they migrated felt there simply had to be another way, where
journal content to this uncertain new medium. scholarship ends up winning.
Thus, while many other sites began giving
away content, scholarly publishers retained
and further beefed up their access controls.

But are there viable alternatives? Any solution


will require a rethinking of the status quo in
scholarly publishing. One possibility is open-
access journals, exemplified by the publica-
tions of PLoS (Public Library of Science),
founded in 2000 by Nobel laureate Harold Var-
mus. In PLoS journals, authors retain all rights
to their work, and anyone can download and
use information from PLoS free of charge, pro-
vided proper credit is given. But such efforts
are still dwarfed by the subscription journals,
and some of the traditional, longer-standing
publications still “count for more” in terms of
academic status. Moreover, open-access un-
dertakings aren’t cost-free: such journals still
need to be supported and maintained.

8
Topics | Winter 2010

plan
the man with a

Computer scientist Stuart Shieber crafted


an open access policy for scholarship that the
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted
in February 2008.
kris snibbe

With powerful incentives for pub- To Shieber, such a compact would be a


lishing in commercial journals, why would an rational, fair, and economically sustainable
aspiring faculty member choose open access? way to support the publication of scholar-
This is where Shieber steps in. His plan is to ship. Others aren’t so sure. One natural
make open access viable, in essence, by level- reaction would be: “Why should there be any
ing the playing field for scholarly publication. problem—or compact—at all? In this age, why
According to Shieber, all that’s needed to set should anyone have to pay to have access to
open access on par with commercial options scholarship?” Stevan Harnad, an outspoken
is that “those underwriting the publisher’s “archivangelist” for giving scholars the green
services for subscription-fee journals commit light to freely and immediately archive any
to a simple ‘compact’ guaranteeing their will- article they author and a professor of cogni-
ingness to underwrite them for processing-fee tive science at the University of Southampton
journals as well.” (UK) School of Electronics and Computer
Science, sums up this argument in a haiku:
This commitment, if widely embraced by “It’s the online age/You’re losing research impact...
universities and funding agencies, would /Make it free online.”
reduce the disincentives for faculty to publish
in open-access venues. While supporting Harnad believes that anything that distracts
open-access publishing fees might seem like a from his goal of achieving universal access
costly commitment for an institution to take in short order (opt-in policies; definitions of
on, in some scenarios, it could be completely copyright; or simply dealing with the various
offset by the reduction over time in fees for rules or fees publishers request for granting
subscription-based journals. Indeed, existing open access) distracts us from the real issues.
subscription journals might even convert to And if it does, Harnad contends, the research
open-access models (should the benefits be community “will yet again have shot itself in
sufficiently compelling). Shieber’s compact the foot insofar as universal OA [open access]
has another advantage: paying to publish ...is concerned” Rather than rearranging the
is more transparent. Traditionally, Shieber deck chairs on the Titanic, he says, why not
writes, “consumers of scholarly articles have do something truly transformative. Harnad’s
been well-insulated from the cost of reading.” paradigm: open-access self-archiving, in which
If faculty were brought face to face with the authors deposit material in open digital ar-
actual costs, they might more easily be en- chives. In short, even right-minded publishers
listed in an effort to address the problem. and supportive academic institutions often
get in the way of scholars reaching their audi-
ences directly.

9
shieber contends that unless the incentives
are right, allowing authors and publishers
to choose among a variety of publishing
platforms without penalty, scholarship will
continue to suffer until a crisis is reached.

Shieber answers such criticisms much as an Ginsparg suggested that a shift to electronic
engineer would. Many aspects of commercial dissemination would quickly resolve the
publishing work well, he says. Instead of bat- access problem. But more than a decade later,
tling the system, our aim should be to set it on with scientific journals duly ensconced in
a realistic foundation. “You can be passion- cyberspace, the issue of access continues to be
ate about all kinds of things,” he says, “but if thorny and unresolved. “People are economic
there’s no way for the economics to work out, actors,” Shieber says, “and that means they
it won’t work.” Notions that “we should just work in their own interest, subject to whatever
give everything away” or that “information constraints they’re under.” For the publishers,
wants to be free” aren’t real-world solutions. owning the copyright to published articles
The free-content model, even with the help of and restricting access (through high fees)
advertisements, probably isn’t sustainable in improves the chances of making scholarly pub-
the short term, let alone the long. (The news- lications pay off. And what of the academics?
paper industry can certainly corroborate this.) While it’s in scholars’ best interests to have the
While praising the good intentions of open- broadest possible access to their work, the re-
access advocates like Harnad, Shieber warns wards (and familiarity) of the existing system
that the situation is far from simple. “There’s a exert a strong gravitational pull.
notion that once we’ve solved the access issue,
our problems are over,” Shieber says. The real- Shieber contends that unless the incentives
ity, he fears, won’t be so obliging. are right, allowing authors and publishers
to choose among a variety of publishing
A case study from the American Physical Soci- platforms without penalty, scholarship will
ety (APS) highlights this point. In an article in continue to suffer until a crisis is reached.
the November 1996 APS newsletter, Paul Gin- “While you can’t separate the economics from
sparg (now a professor of physics at Cornell) the access issue,” he says, “the economic issue
observed that: is clearly secondary.” Once the economics are
taken care of, faculty will be able to focus on
publishers had defined themselves in terms of produc- taking scholarship to the next level. And it’s
tion and distribution, roles which we now regard as there, in discussing the university’s role as a
largely automated … [T]he essential question at this gateway to knowledge, that he truly lets his
point is no longer whether the scientific research lit- passion show. “The whole point of the univer-
erature will migrate to fully electronic dissemination, sity is that we’re supposed to be engaged in
but rather how quickly this transition will take place the generation of knowledge for the good of
now that all of the requisite tools are on-line. society,” he says. “So shouldn’t society be able
to get the goods?”

Discover More Online Stuart Shieber: Natural Language Liberator

www.seas.harvard.edu/topics The DASH Repository


Building a Better e-Book
Q&A with Scribd’s Trip Adler ’06
References and Additional Reading
Topics | Winter 2010

Scholarship as a public good... and public goods

Shieber’s focus on economics and practicali- Such considerations suggest another valid
ties undoubtedly has merit and fits the SEAS model for open-access scholarship, aside
emphasis on “what works” and “practical appli- from self-archiving and Shieber’s compact.
cations.” But there are other factors involved The federal government could step into the
here: open access raises matters of principle, breach: after all, what’s at stake isn’t merely
both philosophical and political. Absent open the “public good” but public goods. Given that
access, how effectively can scholarship pro- much research is publicly funded, the people
mote the public good? To some—i.e., those (and their government) have an interest in
who find it hard to imagine “scholarship” and the results (and access to those results). In
“the public good” in the same sentence—lim- other words, the researcher-publisher partner-
ited access to an article on the Casimir effect ship isn’t bipartite—it’s a “three-way street.”
or yet another interpretation of James Joyce’s Perhaps all federal research grants could stipu-
Ulysses wouldn’t exactly qualify as a hot-button late that findings achieved with public support
issue. Strictly ivory tower stuff. must be made freely available, either through
publication in open-access journals or, if
In the case of science, engineering, and published in subscription-based ones, by being
medicine, people generally understand that made concurrently available via a free digital
basic, seemingly esoteric research can yield archive. At the same time, federal research
profound improvements in our lives: NMR grants could cover reasonable publication costs.
gives us magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) The result, with some tweaking, could recon-
and improved medical diagnoses; digital and cile the interests of all parties.
laser technologies give us CDs and DVDs; and
a rotting cantaloupe in a Peoria, Ill., research In fact, we already have a working model for
lab gives us penicillin. Wooster wonders if a good part of this approach, in the area of
future benefits may be threatened by the medical research. The National Library of
ongoing constriction of scholarly information. Medicine, part of the National Institutes of
“If no one knows about a finding,” she says, Health (NIH), operates PubMed, a compre-
“that’s a great disservice to the whole world. If hensive database of journal citations and
universities are really aiming to improve the abstracts. It also maintains PubMed Central,
world, we need to think hard about this.” a “free digital archive of biomedical and life
sciences journal literature.” In April 2008, at
And there are other matters of principle the instruction of Congress, the NIH adopted
involved. As Wooster says, “It’s always been a new public-access policy, mandating that any
insane that the faculty do the research and investigator funded by the NIH must submit a
write the papers and then give it all away—and copy of any peer-reviewed manuscript that had
we’re forced to buy it back. … I mean, don’t been accepted for publication for posting in
we already own it?” Others make a similar PubMed Central. At present, the policy doesn’t
argument with respect to taxpayers: they’re provide funds to cover costs associated with
being denied something they’ve already paid publication, somewhat limiting this best-
for. After all, federal funds support a signifi- practice scenario.
cant portion of university research. (In 2009,
federal funding underwrote about 80% of all
SEAS research.) But, with few exceptions, the
rights to this publicly funded research—when
published in a traditional academic journal—
are transferred gratis to the publisher. Regard-
less whether taxpayers are interested in, say,
reading up on the latest advances in fuel-cell
technology, Shieber and other open-access
advocates insist they should be able to do so:
the principle still applies.

11
Other ways to open access:
Brave new libraries and digital archives

The devil, of course, is in the details, and Moving forward on the question of access may
questions remain about the likely fallout from also mean looking back to the traditional role
any programmatic commitment to open access. of university presses as editors and distribu-
Would academic presses and parts of the com- tors of a given institution’s scholarship. (Shie-
mercial publishing business perish? Shieber ber concedes the irony that he’s published
insists that his goal (and the overall intent of his books with MIT Press rather than Harvard
open access) has never been “to take down University Press.)
the publishers.” Especially in the Wild West
environment of cyberspace (from blog postings University-based digital archives represent
to tweets to suspect Wikipedia entries), editors another avenue for open access. Such archives
and peer review are as essential as ever. are already coming into being, as seen in the
DASH open-access repository or the Medical
For his part, Shieber downplays the impact of School’s Harvard Catalyst project, which fea-
the current debate. “A very small percentage of tures a social networking database for linking
written works would fall under the open-access researchers and research (including links to
regime as it’s currently being discussed,” he the DASH archive) across the entire University.
says. “Right now, we’re just talking about And some fields (physics, for example) have
scholarly articles—peer-reviewed, specialist long maintained free archives of preprints,
works.” The discussion doesn’t involve books for example, arXiv.org, developed by Cornell’s
(see online content), editorials, content written Ginsparg.
by journalists, etc. Even if scholarly research
shifted entirely to open-access journals tomor- Mobilizing Harvard faculty behind the open-
row, publishers would hardly be out of work. access model and developing a practical
In any case, there will probably be an endur- platform for its implementation will be ongoing
ing market for print versions of publications. challenges. Shieber has invited fellow open-
(Kindle has yet to displace Amazon’s book access expert and Berkman Center Visiting
department.) Fellow Suber to help further foster the process.
Shieber cautions that any shift to open access
But what about the impact on libraries? As will take time. Even after the conceptual and
more and more collections move online, economic issues are resolved, he doesn’t advo-
will the library’s storage function be dimin- cate changing everything at once. But once the
ished? Many people assume that moving to issue of open access becomes secondary and
e-journals and digital collections would pose the claims of researchers and publishers have
a threat to libraries, with the latter winding up been reconciled in a fair (and sustainable)
nearly invisible. Wooster strongly demurs. She way, then, he believes, scholars, universities,
doesn’t think the digital library will be any less publishers, and the wider world will be able
vital than today’s paper-chase repositories. to focus on a bracing new realm of discovery.
John Palfrey—the Henry N. Ess III Professor And isn’t that what we really want science and
of Law, head of the Law School library, and research to be about?
co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet
and Society—anticipates the emergence of
a whole new type of librarian (his preferred
term is “empiricist”) as libraries transform into
information centers, with open-access archives
playing a major role. Much like publishers,
libraries offer services that will continue to be
of value even if journals go online and open-
access archives become commonplace. Shieber
agrees. “Library services (reference, teaching,
and new functions designed to make open-
access materials available) will all continue
to be needed and will be incorporated into
the library’s purview,” he says. And, Wooster
points out, the library’s role as a place for “a
record of history” isn’t likely to be changing
any time soon.

12
Around Oxford Street

Community Highlights

All hands on deck


On October 16, 2009, Dean Cherry A. Murray hosted her first “all-hands” meeting to
outline her 10-year plan for SEAS. She placed particular emphasis on hiring faculty;
enhancing the curriculum through hands-on learning and new degree programs
such as bioengineering; and investing in community-building. Murray also elaborated
on her idea for a future Dean’s Lectureship series that would bring prominent SEAS
alumni to campus.
For more details visit, www.intranet.seas.harvard.edu.

Geniuses use American Express? Passing of a pioneer of ocean dynamics


In September, L. Mahadevan, Lola England Allan R. Robinson, Gordon McKay Professor of
de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Emeritus, passed
was named a MacArthur Fellow—the “genius” away unexpectedly at the age of 76 on Sept.
fellowship—for his research into the science and 25, 2009. A special 1999 issue of Dynamics of
engineering of everyday life. In addition to the Atmospheres and Oceans honored his profound
flurry of media coverage, Mahadevan was even influence on the field: “His relentless quest for
approached by American Express about appear- understanding of the inner workings of the
ing in an advertisement. SEAS is now home to ocean has inspired many students, postdoctoral
three MacArthur “geniuses”: Lene Hau, Mallinck- fellows, and colleagues alike.” A memorial service
rodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics, will be held at Harvard in the spring.
was a MacArthur Fellow in 2001 and Dan Schrag,
Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Profes- Next on 60 Minutes
sor of Environmental Science and Engineering, A small film crew from “60 Minutes” spent a
was a Fellow in 2000. day at SEAS to record the visit by star chef José
Andrés. An innovator in microgastronomy,
Andres visited the labs of Dave Weitz, Mallinck-
rodt Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, to
see the latest in emulsions, and Vinny Manoha-
ran, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering
and Physics, to make mayonnaise with colloids,
and he guest-taught ES 139, “Innovation in Sci-
ence and Engineering”—where, of course, he
did a cooking demo. Weitz and colleagues are
designing a future General Education course on
the science and engineering of food.

Discover more in the SEAS 2008-9 annual report


www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/publications/
annual-reports
MacArthur “genius” fellow L. Mahadevan. Photo courtesy
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Select Awards
Five students named 2010 Siebel Scholars Wood and Wolfe receive Presidential
The Siebel Scholars program recognizes out- Early Career Awards
standing graduate students from the world’s Rob Wood, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engi-
most prestigious graduate schools. The students neering, and Patrick J. Wolfe, Associate Professor
will receive a $35,000 award for their final year of Electrical Engineering, were each named a
of graduate studies. SEAS graduate students so recipient of the 2009 Presidential Early Career
honored include: Geoffrey Werner Challen ’02 Award for Scientists and Engineers. It’s the high-
(Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science), Zhou est honor bestowed by the federal government
Fan ’10 (A.B./S.M. candidate in Mathematics/ on researchers at the early stages of their careers.
Computer Science), Brett Alexander Harrison
’10 (A.B./S.M. candidate in Computer Sci- Anthony Oettinger receives National
ence), Benjamin Lubin ’99 (Ph.D. candidate in Intelligence Medallion
Computer Science), and Ameya Velingker ’10 Anthony G. Oettinger, Gordon McKay Research
(A.B./S.M. candidate in Mathematics, Physics/ Professor of Applied Mathematics and Research
Computer Science). Professor of Information Resources Policy,
received the National Intelligence Medallion in
Zhigang Suo honored with Humboldt recognition of outstanding service in support of
Research Award the Director of National Intelligence as Chair-
Zhigang Suo, Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett man of the Intelligence Science Board.
Professor of Mechanics and Materials, has been
honored with a Humboldt Research Award. The
60,000-EUR award is conferred in recognition of
lifetime achievements in research.

13
Around Oxford Street

Research Briefs

Implant-based cancer vaccine is first to eliminate tumors in mice


New approach reprograms the immune system to attack tumors throughout the body.

Who: David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in


Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Core Member of the
Wyss Institute, and Glenn Dranoff at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Why it matters: The new approach uses plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific
antigens and implanted under the skin to reprogram the mammalian immune system
to attack tumors.
What’s next: Further research and development and extending the approach to other
types of cancer and, much longer term, investigating broader clinical applications.

3-d structure of human genome deciphered


Scientists have deciphered the three-dimensional
structure of the human genome.

Who: Erez Lieberman-Aiden—a graduate student


at both SEAS and the laboratory of Eric Lander
at the Broad Institute—and colleagues.

Why it matters: This finding deepens our under-


standing of how cellular DNA folds at scales that
dwarf the double helix, which promises to yield
further insights into genomic function.

What’s next: Applying the discovery to curing


disease.

China could meet its future energy needs


by wind alone
Researchers estimated that wind alone could
A computer rendered prototype of a robotic bee. meet the country’s electricity demands projected
Illustration courtesy of Robert Wood.
for 2030.

Who: Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor


Flight of the Robobee pushes the frontiers of Environmental Studies; Chris P. Nielsen, Exec-
of engineering, entomology, and more utive Director of the Harvard China Project; and
Funded by a $10-million NSF grant, researchers Xi Lu, a graduate student (all based at SEAS)
are seeking to create next generation Micro Air and a team from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Vehicles.
Why it matters: The group used extensive me-
Who: A team led by Rob Wood, Assistant Profes- teorological data and incorporated the Chinese
sor of Electrical Engineering, with collaborators government’s energy-bidding and financial
from Northeastern and Centeye, a microelec- restrictions for delivering wind power, provid-
tronics firm. ing the first fully comprehensive model for the
potential contribution of this renewable energy
Why it matters: The research could lead to a resource.
greater understanding of how to mimic the col-
lective “intelligence” of a bee colony; foster novel What’s next: The researchers plan to conduct
methods for building an electronic surrogate a more intensive study in China to investigate the
nervous system; and advance work on small-scale year-to-year geographic variations in wind. The
flying mechanical devices. model could be used for assessing wind-power
potential anywhere in the world, onshore or
What’s next: The scientists anticipate the devices offshore, and could be extended as well to solar-
will advance fields ranging from the life sciences generated electricity.
(for example, entomology and developmental
biology) to amorphous computing and electrical Discover more research...
engineering. www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events

14
New & Recent Appointments
eliza grinnell

eliza grinnell
Yiling Chen, Assistant Professor of Daniel Needleman, Assistant Professor of
Computer Science Applied Physics and Assistant Professor
Chen—a veteran of the online giant Yahoo!— of Molecular and Cellular Biology
researches topics at the intersection of computer Joint appointment with the Faculty of Arts and
science and economics, encompassing algo- Sciences Center for Systems Biology
rithms, complexity, mechanism design, game
Needleman uses quantitative experimental tech-
theory, optimization, multi-agent systems, and
niques to study how the cooperative behaviors
machine learning.
of molecules give rise to the architecture and dy-
namics of self-organizing subcellular structures.

eliza grinnell

Stephen Chong, Assistant Professor of


Computer Science
Sharad Ramanathan,
Chong’s research aims to help programmers Assistant Professor of Molecular and
write trustworthy programs. He focuses on Cellular Biology
using programming language technologies
Joint appointment with the Faculty of Arts and
to provide strong, practical information-security
Sciences Center for Systems Biology
guarantees.
Ramanathan’s research explores the ways in
which cells and organisms process signals from
their surrounding environment and how the
underlying molecular pathways for such sensory
processing evolved.
eliza grinnell

Krzysztof Gajos, Assistant Professor of


Computer Science
Gajos’s research interests are in human-computer
interaction, artificial intelligence, and applied
machine learning.

In Translation
“Xbox computing” speeds up research
NVIDIA Corporation recognized Harvard as
a CUDA™ Center of Excellence for its commit-
ment to teaching GPU (Graphics Processing
Unit) Computing and its integration of CUDA™ A more flexible grip
enabled GPUs for a host of science and engineer- allows this Harvard-based
aaron dollar

ing research projects. robotic hand to grasp a


range of objects.
SEAS grad student and alumni recognized as
among world’s top young innovators
In its annual TR35 list (the 35 top innovators Robotic grasper grabs worldwide
under the age of 35), MIT’s Technology Review exclusive license
honored graduate student Erez Lieberman-Aid- Barrett Technology Inc. formalized a licens-
en and two alumni with SEAS connections: James ing agreement with Harvard University under
Carey ’04, of SiOnyx, for his use of “black silicon” which it has acquired exclusive rights to a novel
to build inexpensive, super-sensitive light detec- polymer-based robotic-hand technology. This
tors, and Kurt Zenz House ’08, of C12 Energy, robotic grasper was developed by Robert D.
for his work in the capture of carbon dioxide Howe, Gordon McKay Professor of Engineering,
through cement production. and Aaron Dollar, a former member of Howe’s
lab and currently an Assistant Professor at Yale’s
School of Engineering and Applied Science.

15
Around Oxford Street

Hands On, Minds On

Innovation Space expands opportunities for students


The Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) launched its
new Innovation Space on September 1, expanding SEAS’s resources for experiential
education and hands-on innovation. Occupying 2,100 square feet on the top floor of
the Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), it’s open to students all hours and organized
through a partnership between TECH, HSA, and their affiliated student groups.

Celebrating the interface of the arts J-Term course offers experience in the field
and sciences SEAS, in collaboration with the Escola Politéc-
The Laboratory at Harvard (The Lab), a catalyst nica of the Universidade de São Paulo and the
space to support student and faculty exploration David Rockefeller Center for Latin American
and experimentation, hosted an official opening Studies, is offering a field course that will take
on November 8 in the Northwest Science Build- place in Brazil during the University’s first Janu-
ing. Exhibitions by Harvard students ranged ary Term. Students will have opportunities to
from Vertigrow, a modular planter designed for explore energy, water, and the environment.
crowded urban spaces, to GIGUE, a music-social
performance generated from human bio-data.
The Lab (www.laboratory.harvard.edu) is led by
David Edwards, Gordon McKay Professor of the
Practice of Bioengineering.

eliza grinnell

Phil Maymin ’97 is a professor and former SEAS’s Anas Chalah shows off the Instructional
libertarian political candidate. Image Labs to Mireille and Warren Wilkinson ’41.
courtesy of Phil Maymin.

Alumni Connections Recent Gifts

Everything and Anything Thanks to several current use gifts (below),


We like to say that alumni from SEAS go on SEAS has been able to greatly enhance its
to careers in everything from engineering to educational programs.
philanthropy. Even with that in mind, the recent Warren Wilkinson SB ’41 established a current-
pursuits of Phil Maymin ’97 (M.S. in Applied use SEAS Dean’s Discretionary Fund of $250,000.
Mathematics and a B.A. in Computer Science) SEAS is using the flexible fund to bolster the
are notably diverse. For his day job, Maymin undergraduate teaching labs and supplement
serves as an Assistant Professor of Finance and our current nanotech equipment.
Risk Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute
of New York University. SEAS received over $325,000 in gifts from
various college alumni to support TECH. This
He also recently gained media attention for generous support allows TECH to continue
his paper suggesting that hit songs can be used developing innovative education for students
to predict stock market behavior: “With the through courses, seminars, training, networking
recent high stock volatility, people should now opportunities, and annual competitions.
prefer less volatile music. Furthermore, the beat
variance appears able to predict future market SEAS emeritus professor and Nobel Prize winner
volatility, producing 2.5 volatility points of profit Nicolaas Bloembergen AM ’51 GSA ’48 GSA ’51
per year on average.” established a $1 million Charitable Remainder
Trust that will ultimately support SEAS graduate
And in 2006, he ran for Congress in Connecti- students.
cut’s 4th Congressional District as an outspoken
Libertarian. While he didn’t win, he was known Discover more ways to connect and to give...
for his humorous campaign ads. http://alumni.harvard.edu/

Discover more about SEAS alumni...


www.seas.harvard.edu/audiences/alumni

16
eliza grinnell
End Note
Dean Cherry A. Murray

How do you make a great


place even better?
After serving as dean of SEAS for the past systems-level engineering problem with more
six months, I find myself with an enviable twists and turns than a good mystery. As my
challenge. Our faculty, students, and staff are predecessor Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti
superb. Our alumni are as amazing as they was fond of saying, engineering does, indeed,
are dedicated. And I’ve found that being part underlie everything.
of Harvard, even during what has been a
I hope you find our comprehensive look at
difficult time, is an unparalleled—and exhila-
open access as refreshing and as fascinating
rating—experience.
as I do. In coming issues, we’ll cover a wide
I believe that we can make SEAS even more range of topics, including nature-inspired
outstanding as a school for engineering and engineering, the future of energy, and student
applied sciences—not simply continuing and innovation.
maintaining what we have accomplished, but
Our new website (www.seas.harvard.edu)
making SEAS preeminent in its faculty, its
is now the place to find the latest news on
students, its research, its community. I’ve
research and student life.
outlined a plan, which—with the help of an
outstanding team of faculty and administra- I also encourage you to become a fan of SEAS
tors—I believe will take us in that direction. on Facebook (www.facebook.com/hseas);
At the heart of this vision for SEAS is a subscribe to the Harvard Research Twitter
comprehensive educational and research feed, twitter.com/HarvardResearch; and visit
planning process and a renewed, commitment the new Alumni Affairs site http://alumni.
to building strong foundations and spreading harvard.edu.
the word. In short, we intend to be bold, to
Thanks to everyone who has made my
grow, and to continue raising our stature.
transition so effortless. I look forward to
This redesigned newsletter marks one of meeting many of you in the months ahead
the ways we’re taking new steps to share the and to keeping you up-to-date about our
fantastic, broad-based contributions of the progress. In the meantime, please feel free
SEAS community with our friends, peers, to drop me a line.
and the world-at-large. In this issue, we tackle
the topic of open-access scholarship. With
the leadership of computer scientist Stuart
Shieber, Harvard became one the first aca-
demic organizations in the country to adopt
an open-access mandate. It also turns out
that the problem of access is, at heart, a

Cherry A. Murray
Dean, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering
and Applied Sciences

camurray@seas.harvard.edu
29 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

A publication of the Harvard School of Engineering


and Applied Sciences Communications Office. Survey
Please send feedback to: communications@seas.harvard.edu
or call us at 617-496-3815.
We’re experimenting with new
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latest information from SEAS. Please
Managing Editor/Writer give us 5 minutes of your time and
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enhanced efforts and tell us how we
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Copyeditor/Proofreader Thanks!
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www.seas.harvard.edu/survey
Feature Story Authors
Michael Patrick Rutter is Communications Director at the Harvard
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Before joining SEAS,
he spent a decade working in academic publishing.

James Clyde Sellman, PhD ’93, history, has copyedited the SEAS
newsletter since 2006. A freelance writer and editor, he has
published in Harvard Women’s Health Watch, Harvard Health Letter,
and About.com’s Health Channel, among others.

©  Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

www.seas.harvard.edu

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