The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.
Our digital communication network has been engineered so that copies flow with as little friction as possible. Indeed, copies flow so freely we could think of the internet as a super-distribution system, where once a copy is introduced it will continue to flow through the network forever, much like electricity in a superconductive wire. We see evidence of this in real life. Once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once its flowed on the internet.
What are Open Textbooks?
The Short Answer: “Open textbooks” are free, online, open-access textbooks. The content of open textbooks is licensed to allow anyone to use, download, customize, or print without expressed permission from the author.
The Rutgers Optimality Archive is a distribution point for research in Optimality Theory.
Posting in ROA is open to all who wish to disseminate their work in, on, or about OT.
BRII – Berkeley Research Impact Initiative
co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Research and the University Librarian
BRII home
New Program Announcement (PDF)
Program Description
Frequently Asked Questions
Instructions for Application and Reimbursement
UCB Scholarly Communication website
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is BRII?
The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) supports faculty members who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication. An 18-month pilot program, BRII will subsidize, in various degrees, fees charged to authors who select open access or paid access publication. The pilot will also yield data that can be used to gauge faculty interest in — as well as the budgetary impacts of — these new modes of scholarly communication on the Berkeley campus.