Free Research!

Check out this story from Education Week. Stanford University's School of Education says that it will make all of its academic research available free of charge.

Faculty members at Stanford University’s school of education have voted to make scholarly articles available to the public for free, a policy change that the university says makes Stanford’s education school the first such school in the nation to join the growing “open access” movement in academia.

This is a welcome development. Of course, policymakers will continue to need skilled interpreters and brokers to figure out what -- especially quantitative -- research actually says (and doesn't say) and how it is relevant to the challenges and contexts in which they work.

What are the financial costs of such a policy? And who bears them? Will other institutions -- both public and private -- follow in Stanford's footsteps?