Public Act 098-0295
 
SB1900 EnrolledLRB098 09377 RPM 39518 b

    AN ACT concerning education.
 
    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
 
    Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Open
Access to Research Articles Act.
 
    Section 5. Purpose. The General Assembly finds and declares
the following:
        (1) to maximize the social and economic benefits of
    research to the public, the published research articles
    produced by faculty at public universities should be made
    as widely available as possible, wide availability
    referring both to the depth of availability of a given
    research article (including immediate availability where
    practicable, long-term preservation and free public
    access, and broad accessibility for reuse and further
    research) and the breadth of research articles made
    available;
        (2) the public support these employees receive and the
    increased impact that broad public dissemination of
    research has is an important public purpose;
        (3) many public universities have developed, or are
    developing, the capacity to provide free access over the
    Internet to such research through institutional
    repositories or otherwise; and
        (4) a substantial portion of the research currently is
    not freely available over the Internet because the faculty
    have entered into publication agreements with terms that
    restrict public access to the fruits of unclassified
    research conducted by these State employees.
 
    Section 10. Definitions. In this Act, "public university"
means the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois
University, Chicago State University, Eastern Illinois
University, Governors State University, Illinois State
University, Northeastern Illinois University, Northern
Illinois University, Western Illinois University, or any other
public university or college now or hereafter established or
authorized by the General Assembly.
 
    Section 15. Task forces.
    (a) By January 1, 2014, each public university shall
establish an Open Access to Research Task Force. Each task
force shall be appointed by the chairperson of the board of
trustees for the public university, with the advice and consent
of that board. Each task force shall be comprised of voting
members and non-voting members. The voting members shall
include, without limitation, members representing the
university's library, members representing faculty, including,
where applicable, a labor organization that represents faculty
at the public university, and members representing university
administration. The non-voting members shall include, without
limitation, a member representing publishers who publish
scholarly journals. In the instance of public universities that
have multiple campuses, each campus shall have representation
on the task force. The task force shall review current
practices and design a proposed policy regarding open access to
research articles, based on criteria that are specific to each
public university's needs.
    (b) Each task force shall (i) consider how the public
university can best further the open access goals laid out in
this Act, whether by creation of an open access policy for the
public university, creation of an open access policy for the
State, or some other mechanism; (ii) review how peer
institutions and the federal government are addressing issues
related to open access and ensure that any institutional or
statewide policies are consistent with steps taken by federal
grant-making agencies; and (iii) consider academic, legal,
ethical, and fiscal ramifications of and questions regarding an
open access policy, including but not limited to the following:
        (1) the question of how to preserve the academic
    freedom of scholars to publish as they wish while still
    providing public access to research;
        (2) the design of a copyright policy that meets the
    needs of the public as well as of authors and publishers;
        (3) the design of reporting, oversight, and
    enforcement mechanisms;
        (4) the cost of maintaining and, where applicable,
    creating institutional repositories;
        (5) the potential for collaboration between public
    universities regarding the use and maintenance of
    repositories;
        (6) the potential use of existing scholarly
    repositories;
        (7) the fiscal feasibility and benefits and drawbacks
    to researchers of institutional support for Gold open
    access fees (where publication costs are covered by author
    fees rather than by subscription or advertising fees);
        (8) the differences between academic and publishing
    practices in different fields and the manner in which these
    differences should be reflected in an open access policy;
        (9) the determination of which version of a research
    article should be made publicly accessible; and
        (10) the determination of which researchers and which
    research ought to be covered by an open access policy,
    including, but not limited to, the question of whether a
    policy should cover theses and dissertations written by
    students at public institutions; research conducted by
    employees of State agencies; research supported by State
    grants, but not conducted by employees of public
    institutions or State agencies; research materials
    digitized using State funding; data collected by covered
    researchers; research conducted by faculty at institutions
    that receive Monetary Award Program grants under Section 35
    of the Higher Education Student Assistance Act; research
    conducted by part-time, adjunct, or other non-permanent
    faculty; research at least one of whose co-authors is
    covered by the policy; research progress reports presented
    at professional meetings or conferences; laboratory notes,
    preliminary data analyses, notes of the author, phone logs,
    or other information used to produce final manuscripts; or
    classified research, research resulting in works that
    generate revenue or royalties for authors (such as books),
    or patentable discoveries.
    (c) Each task force shall conduct open meetings with
advance notice and shall allow individuals to address the task
force regarding open access issues. Notwithstanding any
provisions of the Open Meetings Act and subject to feasibility,
members of the task force and interested parties may
participate by phone or video conference.
    (d) On or before January 1, 2015, each task force shall
adopt a report setting forth its findings and recommendations.
These recommendations shall include a detailed description of
any open access policy the task force recommends that the
public university or State adopt, as well as, in the case of
the public university, a plan for implementation. This report
must be approved by a majority of the appointed task force
voting members. A task force shall also issue minority reports
at the request of any member, including a non-voting member.
Each report shall be submitted to the board of trustees of the
respective public university, the Board of Higher Education,
both chambers of the General Assembly, and the Governor. The
Board of Higher Education shall publish, on its Internet
website, a list of all public universities subject to this Act.
The list shall indicate which public universities have
submitted the report required pursuant to this subsection (d).
 
    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon
becoming law.