Open Access Resolution

Approved by the Faculty Senate on April 4, 2016

On April 4, 2016, the University of Arizona Faculty Senate passed an open access policy that calls on the faculty and university to distribute faculty-authored scholarly articles to the widest possible audience through the UA Campus Repository. 

Preamble

The Faculty of the University of Arizona is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible. As part of a public, land grant university, the Faculty is dedicated to making its scholarship available to the people of Arizona and the world to maximize its impact. Furthermore, the Faculty recognizes the benefits that accrue to themselves as individual scholars and the scholarly enterprise from such wide dissemination, including greater recognition, more thorough consideration and critique, and a general increase in the exchange and creation of knowledge. In keeping with these considerations, and for the primary purpose of making our scholarly articles widely and freely accessible, the Faculty adopts the following policy:

Grant of Permission and Limitations

Each faculty member grants the University of Arizona permission to make their articles freely available in an Open Access repository. Such permission and the associated deposit of articles in a repository are consistent with the existing University of Arizona Intellectual Property Policy. This provision does not transfer copyright ownership of faculty articles, which remains with Faculty authors under the existing University of Arizona Intellectual Property Policy.

Deposit of Articles

To assist the University of Arizona in archiving and disseminating scholarly articles, the Faculty commit to helping the University obtain copies of its articles. Specifically, each Faculty member who does not obtain a waiver to deposit in the university’s Open Access repository will provide an electronic copy of the final accepted (post-peer review) manuscripts of his or her articles to the University of Arizona, by the date of publication, for inclusion in an Open Access repository. When appropriate, a Faculty member may instead notify the University of Arizona if the article will be freely available as an Open Access publication. Faculty members who have waived the deposit requirement may nonetheless choose to submit a copy with the University of Arizona for preservation purposes.

This policy does not in any way prescribe or limit the venue of publication for faculty members, who retain the right to publish articles in the journals or other venues of their choice. This policy neither requires nor prohibits the payment of fees or publication costs by authors.

Oversight of Policy

The University Libraries, in consultation with Faculty Senate leadership and the Office of the Provost, will be responsible for implementing this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending any changes to the policy. Changes to the text of the policy will require approval by the Faculty Senate. The University Libraries will provide a report to Faculty Senate on the impact of the policy within three years.

The Faculty Senate calls upon university units to develop and monitor mechanisms that would render implementation and compliance with the policy as convenient as possible for the Faculty.