Library Technology Guides

MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U. MIT and Harvard University have announced a major transition for edX, the nonprofit organization they launched in 2012 to provide an open online platform for university courses: edX's assets are to be acquired by the publicly-traded education technology company 2U, and reorganized as a public benefit company under the 2U umbrella. [Full Announcement].

The MIT Press launches Direct to Open. The MIT Press has announced the launch of Direct to Open (D2O). A first-of-its-kind sustainable framework for open access monographs, D2O moves professional and scholarly books from a solely market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model. [Full Announcement].

MIT Libraries develop innovative open access agreements with PLOS. The MIT Libraries has negotiated two new open-access publishing agreements with the nonprofit publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS) that allow all MIT authors to publish in all PLOS titles with no publishing fees. The agreement aligns with the core principles of the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts. [Full Announcement].

HP, MIT Libraries announce digital archive project. Hewlett-Packard Company and the MIT Libraries today announced a $1.8 million joint project to build a digital archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that could serve as a model for other universities. The archive will be capable of holding the approximately 10,000 articles produced by MIT authors annually, including a large amount of multimedia content. In addition to establishing its own research team at the university, HP Labs will provide the university with $1.8 million for the two-year project to cover staff, equipment and space. The system is expected to be able to begin accepting submissions late next year. [Full Announcement].