MIT Libraries receives grant from National Science Foundation to explore open science evaluations with ICOR | News

“MIT Libraries has received an Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) grant of $300,000 from the National Science Foundation to explore a transformative model for evaluating open science policies, practices, and interventions. The project is a collaboration between the Libraries’ Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS), a hub for rigorous research to inform the development of a more equitable and open system of scholarly communications, and Incentivizing Collaborative and Open Research (ICOR)….

The EAGER project aims to advance a research model that would enable more systematic understanding of open science by embedding experiments and measurements into existing open science systems and activities. CREOS and ICOR will inventory opportunities for embedded interventions, conduct a listening tour with diverse stakeholders, develop a strategy for a proposed fellowship program, and create guidance for standardized reporting on studies of equitable open scholarship….”

Imaging Neuroscience & community over commercialization: An OA week panel – LibCal – MIT Libraries

“Join MIT Libraries and the MIT Press for an online panel with the editor of Imaging Neuroscience, a new open access journal that launched after editorial teams from two Elsevier journals left the publisher over disputes around the high cost for authors.

We’ll explore some of the benefits and challenges of moving a journal from a large, commercial publisher to a non-profit university press, and how the new journal better prioritizes the interests of this community.

The webinar is part of MIT’s celebration of Open Access Week, whose theme this year asks us to think about what’s lost when a shrinking number of corporations control knowledge production rather than researchers themselves.

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93362028157 …”

Being Earnest With Collections–Voting with our Dollars: Making a New Home for the Collections Budget in the MIT Libraries

“Under the vision and leadership of new MIT Libraries Associate Director for Collections Greg Eow and Director Chris Bourg, the management of the MIT Libraries collections budget has recently been incorporated into the scholarly communications program. Essentially, the collections budget is now an element under our scholarly communications umbrella…

We made this change because we want to use our collections dollars — in a more systematic and strategic way — to transform the scholarly communications landscape towards more openness, and toward expanded, democratized access. …”

The MIT Press receives $10 million endowment gift for open access to knowledge | May 8, 2023

“The MIT Press today announced that it has received a $10 million gift from Arcadia—a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage, and promote open access to knowledge—to establish the Arcadia Open Access Fund. The new fund will support the MIT Press’s ground-breaking efforts to publish open access books and journals in fields ranging from science and technology to the social sciences, arts, and humanities. It will also help the MIT Press continue to develop tools, models, and resources that make scholarship more accessible to researchers and other readers around the world. “We are incredibly grateful to Arcadia for this generous gift,” said Amy Brand, Director and Publisher of the MIT Press. “The new endowment makes it possible for the MIT Press to build on and sustain its influential publishing programs. With this enduring support for open books and journals, we can use our power as an academic publisher to expand public understanding of scholarship and science and to democratize participation in research.” Arcadia is providing an outright endowment gift of $5 million, as well as a $5 million “challenge” gift to incentivize other funders by matching their support of MIT’s open publishing activities….”

Harvard, MIT edX windfall funds bold vision, few specifics

“Almost two years ago, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sold edX, their pioneering massive open online course provider, to 2U, an online program management company. At the time, many in higher ed argued that edX’s sale to a for-profit company undermined its nonprofit mission to expand access to learning. Also, some of edX’s original investors and dues-paying university partners were concerned about not getting a cut of the $800 million that 2U paid Harvard and MIT.

But Harvard and MIT celebrated the windfall at the time as a way to fund a nonprofit “reimagining the future of learning for people at all stages of life, addressing educational inequalities, and continuing to advance next generation learning experiences and platforms.” (EdX’s sale garnered the two institutions a tenfold return on their combined $80 million investment.) Now, the universities have followed through on that promise with their recent announcement of the Axim Collaborative. The new nonprofit was funded from edX’s sale and aims to improve educational outcomes and employment pathways for underserved students….”

Harvard and MIT Launch Education Nonprofit Using Proceeds From edX Sale, Tap Stephanie Khurana as CEO | News | The Harvard Crimson

“Stephanie R. Khurana will serve as chief executive officer of Axim Collaborative, a new nonprofit launched by Harvard University and MIT, the organization announced in a press release Thursday morning.

Axim Collaborative, previously known as the Center for Reimagining Learning, is a nonprofit created by the two universities using proceeds from their sale of the jointly owned education platform edX. An online learning initiative started by Harvard and MIT in 2012, edX was sold to Maryland-based tech startup 2U, Inc. for $800 million in 2021.

Axim aims to make learning more accessible, effective, and engaging by building on edX’s “commitment to educational equity,” according to the press release. The nonprofit will focus initial efforts on supporting post-secondary education for underserved groups….”

Labbers win MIT Prize for Open Data 2022 — MIT Media Lab

“The MIT School of Science and the MIT Libraries co-sponsored the inaugural MIT Prize for Open Data to highlight the value of open data at MIT and to encourage the next generation of researchers. The following winners and honorable mentions include members of the Media Lab community, and were selected from more than 70 nominees representing all five schools and several research centers across MIT….”

Open Access Week 2022: Open for Climate Justice | Scholarly Communications – MIT Libraries

“Open Access Week is October 24-30, and this year’s theme is Open for Climate Justice: “Climate justice is an explicit acknowledgement that the climate crisis has far-reaching effects, and the impacts are ‘not be[ing] borne equally or fairly, between rich and poor, women and men, and older and younger generations,’ as the UN notes.” Learn more about climate justice in this explainer on MIT’s Climate Portal.

During OA week, head to the Libraries news site for stories on MIT’s Equitable Resilience Framework, new funds available for open access monographs, news on open from the MIT Press, and more.

Here are some goings-on in and around MIT related to OA and/or climate in the next week: …”

MIT Prize for Open Data | MIT Libraries News

“Have you worked with or created open data? Have you built tools that advance the use or distribution of open data? Have you theorized in novel ways about open data, especially with respect to ethical or social responsibility? And you’re conducting research at MIT?!?!?

Well, we have a prize opportunity for you!

Welcome to the MIT Prize for Open Data. This prize opportunity, presented by the MIT Libraries and MIT School of Science, is meant to “highlight the value of open data at MIT, and to encourage the next generation of researchers.” 

Submit nominations for yourself or others by Friday, September 16, 2022, 5pm at libraries.mit.edu/opendata. We look forward to seeing what you’ve done and to awarding $2,500 and an invitation to present your project at an “Open Data at MIT” event during Open Access Week in October to the winning projects….”

An Overseas Ed-Tech Firm Wants to Buy 2U. What Could That Mean for Colleges?

“Byju’s, an ed-tech behemoth based in India, has put more than $1 billion on the table to acquire the online program manager, Bloomberg first reported late last month. 2U is one of the largest online-program managers, or OPMs, in the United States, known for scaling up online-degree programs and teaming up with more than 130 American colleges, including large institutions such as Arizona State, New York, and Syracuse Universities. It’s also the parent company of the online-course provider edX….

The worry among colleges, these experts say, is that if Byju’s wanted to shave costs or focus more on short-term, course-level products, it could scale back that “high-touch” model that many institutions have come to expect in exchange for paying 2U millions of dollars through tuition-sharing agreements. There’s wariness, too, of temporary disruptions that can happen whenever a company undergoes reorganization.

College leaders fear that Byju’s intent is to “use the toehold and cash flow to accomplish some other goal,” and that 2U’s clients will not be a priority, said Clay Shirky, vice provost for educational technologies at New York University, which works with 2U. “That’s what we’re worried about.” …”

‘‘They Didn’t Care’: Inside One University’s Sputtering Online Partnership With 2U’ | Jeff Pooley

Michael Vasquez, writing for The Chronicle [paywalled] a few weeks ago: When a pair of professors stepped down from their posts at Arcadia University this year, without another job lined up, they did so to halt the creation of a physician-assistant program in partnership with 2U, the online-learning giant. […] After the full-time faculty members left, the program director also stepped down — further dampening any hopes of launching the program soon, as a program director must be on the job for 15 months before any accreditor visit. The resignations came several months after the accreditor’s virtual site visit to evaluate Arcadia’s fledgling hybrid physician-assistant program. That virtual visit did not go well. If and when the delayed, staff-less program gets launched, 2U will receive 62.5% of tuition revenue for 15 years, The Chronicle reported. Online Program Managers (OPMs) like 2U are stealth privatizers of nonprofit higher ed, even as they drain dollars from our universities and students. The Government Accountability Office’s mild-mannered May report [pdf] calling on more oversight was followed, earlier this month, by a hard-hitting Wall Street Journal piece (“2U Inc. isn’t a university, but it sometimes looks like one”), so maybe scrutiny of the sleazy sector is picking up. Just in time for 2U’s likely sale to an Indian ed-tech giant. What looks worse than ever is Harvard and MIT’s shameless decision last year to sell edX.  

MIT Open Access Task Force | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“The MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research, chaired by Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Hal Abelson and Director of Libraries Chris Bourg, will lead an Institute-wide discussion of ways in which current MIT open access policies and practices might be updated or revised to further the Institute’s mission of disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible.”

Open access policies at MIT | Scholarly Publishing – MIT Libraries

“In March 2009, MIT faculty passed one of the country’s first open access policies; the policy covers their scholarly articles by default.

As of April 2017, all MIT authors, including students, postdocs, and staff, can “opt-in” to an open access license. See below for information on how to deposit a paper, get download statistics on your papers, or opt out of the policy. Authors covered by the MIT faculty open access policy do not need to sign this license.

MIT faculty OA policy
Text of the 2009 faculty open access policy, as well as definitions of terms that appear in the policy.
MIT authors’ opt-in OA license
Information and FAQs on MIT’s opt-in open access license. Sign the license.
FAQ on MIT’s faculty OA policy
Opt-out of MIT’s OA policies
Automated form to waive the faculty OA policy or authors’ opt-in license for a specific paper. Email oapolicyoptout@mit.edu for more information.
Reader comments on OA articles
This beta site shows what readers around the globe are saying about MIT’s OA policy.
Open access publishing support
Find support for open access publishing, including the OA fund. …”

Sanjay Sarma to step down as vice president for open learning | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“After nearly a decade running MIT’s digital learning platforms and education initiatives, Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma will step down from that post at the end of June, President L. Rafael Reif announced today in an email to the MIT community.

 

Sarma, who is the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been responsible for MIT Open Learning, which includes the Office of Digital Learning, the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili), the Center for Advanced Virtuality, and the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL). Since 2012, he has led MIT Open Learning, first as director, then as dean, and finally as MIT vice president for open learning….”

MIT OpenCourseWare launches NextGen platform

After serving millions of learners around the world for the last 20 years, MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) has launched its next-generation platform to allow for flexible growth, experimentation, and evolution in open learning. MIT’s “NextGen OCW” offers a new and improved experience for learners, more support for educators, additional opportunities for open education collaboration, and a greater capacity to share even more robust MIT content in the years to come.