‘Harvard’s open publishing policy and the outlook for law schools‘ is a short piece written by Gene Coo from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He takes a look at law review publishing and the implications of Harvard’s recent commitment to open access.
“The openness of law schools’ journals is largely due to history rather than deliberate planning. It gives law schools a huge potential leg up in entering the digital knowledge network, but because it’s arisen by happenstance, it’s also vulnerable to being undermined.”
He concludes that law schools are well positioned to take full advantage of emerging trends in scholarly communication and should make a formal commitment to open publishing and embrace a digital environment where “all scholarship [is] openly available.”