Open Access is an alternative to the traditional closed, subscription-access system of scholarly communication. Open Access makes the results of scholarly research available online for free, immediately upon publication, and removes barriers for scholarly and educational re-use. Entire journals can be open-access, or an author can provide Open Access to an individual article by posting a copy on an openly accessible institutional repository. All forms of open-access publication depend on rigorous methods of quality control, including peer review.

Open Access has achieved remarkable success to date: more than 4,000 open-access journals are published today; millions of articles are made available via open-access repositories; and dozens of policies from universities and research funders support Open Access, but still more needs to be done.

The University of Washington must join this movement. It should support its faculty and researchers in making their publications available online through a free, open, University supported institutional repository.

We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, hereby endorse Open Access as the preferred model for scholarly communication, because:

(a) Open Access improves the educational experience. All students, regardless of their institution’s ability to afford subscriptions, should have access to the full scholarly record, whether for assigned reading, research for a term paper, or literature review for a dissertation.

(b) Open Access democratizes access to research. Students from around the world should have full access to the scholarly literature, along with patients looking for medical information and citizens seeking to learn about the environment or other scientific topics.

(c) Open Access advances research. Open Access helps researchers be more productive by facilitating access to the latest studies. Open Access also enables new techniques for computer-assisted research, paving the way for scientific advancements.

(d) Open Access improves the visibility and impact of scholarship. Today's student is tomorrow’s scholar. Recent studies suggest that Open Access articles are downloaded and cited more frequently than articles that are accessible only through subscription. Open Access fulfills researchers’ professional responsibility to maximize the impact of their research.

We hereby call upon students, faculty, and staff to support an Open Access policy at the University of Washington.

We believe universities should adopt policies that ensure that research is deposited in an institutional repository, such as the policies adopted at Stanford University, Harvard University, MIT, and throughout the University of California system.

We cannot do it alone. We commit to helping those around us understand the benefits of Open Access institutional repositories. We must advocate for the ideals that power Open Access, and for the tangible benefits it grants to students, faculty, and researchers.