Subject: Examples of public access policies
To: Peter Gilkey (gilkey@uoregon.edu)
From: JQ Johnson (jqj@uoregon.edu)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:42:21

Peter,

You asked for examples of public access policies. Here are 6. When possible I think we should be careful to link to the official policy rather than just make a copy. Note that a fairly good index of these policies can be found at http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ and that the group may want to review all of the policies listed there, especially since some of the best-crafted are from non-US institutions. The examples here are listed in approximate chronological order of adoption:(Archival Copy 23 November 2009)

1. A. The earliest widely known public access policy (Feb 2008), and the one which most other universities have emulated, is Harvard (originally FAS, now 4 faculties). Their official policy statement is: http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/OpenAccess/policytexts.php (Archival Copy 23 November 2009)
2. B. MIT (Mar 2009): http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/faculty-and-researchers/mit-faculty-open-access-policy/ (Archival Copy 23 November 2009)
3. C. University of Kansas (April 2009): http://www.lib.ku.edu/scholcomm/OA_announce.shtml (Archival Copy 23 November 2009)
4. D. The policy adopted by the UO Department of Romance Languages (May 2009) is on line at: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=University%20of%20Oregon%3A%20Department%20of%20Romance%20Languages (Archival Copy 23 November 2009 )
5. E. National Center for Atmospheric Research (Sept 2009): http://opensky.library.ucar.edu/policy (Archival Copy 23 November 2009)
6. F. Oberlin College (Nov 2009). The authoritative statement is at: http://www.oberlin.edu/library/programs/scholcomm/OAresolution.html (Archival Copy 23 November 2009)

Note that a common thread is a commitment to open access to faculty journal scholarship, based on evidence that such access enhances the visibility of the research and a belief that widespread access is good public policy.

The policies all include provisions:

• (a) to make clear that by default the institution retains a (non-exclusive) license for scholarly articles that allows deposit in its institutional repository
• (b) that there is an easy opt-out for authors who are unable to grant such a license or who do not wish to allow deposit of their work

There is quite a bit of variation as to whether the policy also asks faculty members to facilitate deposit by providing a copy.

There is some variation as to exactly what works are covered, but the trend is to focus narrowly on scholarly articles. There is a somewhat separate set of resolutions aimed at dissertations.

JQ
JQ Johnson
Director, Scholarly Communications & Instructional Support
University of Oregon Libraries
1299 University of Oregon T: 1-541-346-1746; F: -3485
Eugene, OR 97403-1299 email: jqj@uoregon.edu http://libweb.uoregon.edu office: 115F Knight Library