Since July 2012, we have been soliciting comments from readers of articles in the Open Access Articles Collection, where MIT faculty papers are openly accessible under the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.
Now, a new web page digests these readers’ comments.
Most of the comments have not been released before, including these from grateful readers around the world:
“I am an associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico … We have scarce library resources, so it is difficult for me and my students to do research. ….Thanks for making [this article] available.” — Faculty, Puerto Rico
“I work in a small but growing humanities department in the Baltic, with limited institutional resources.Your implementation of open access enables me to design curriculums that include publications by MIT staff that we would otherwise not have access to: enhancing the learning experience of our students, introducing them to the work of scholars on the cutting edge… ” –Faculty, Estonia
“In countries like Bangladesh getting access to [paid] sites…is difficult on many levels, so open access definitely helps students…” –Student, Bangladesh
“Thanks to MIT Open Access, I was able to read a high-quality document on a subject in which there has been very little research. I discovered that I’m not alone in my research interests, however esoteric some it may seem. I found a very insightful article that took me to a new level of inspiration. I look forward to making my own contributions.” – Student, US
“I am a retired engineer doing independent research and teaching courses on airborne radar to engineers…Having open access to articles such as this is extremely important.” – Retired engineer, US
“I am an independent researcher, with no current academic affiliation. I am writing a book which involves researching topological quantum neural computing. Open access made this article easily available to me. … Thank you for making science freely available to all!” – Scientific journalist, US
“When doing research on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, I could see but not access many of the germane papers through my high school access. Luckily, googling the paper I needed … revealed to me that MIT allowed me to read the paper for free. Thanks, MIT Faculty!”
– Student, Jamaica
We extend a special thanks to those readers, like these, who have taken the time to share their stories. To read more of their comments, go to the Readers Share Their Stories page.
To share your own comment as a reader of Open Access Articles, use the comment form.
For more information:
Ellen Finnie Duranceau, Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing, Copyright, and Licensing
