Good practices for university open-access policies

Contents

This version is only being shared with likely partners. When the text is a little more polished, and we have a critical mass of consulting experts and supporting organizations, we'll make it public.

Preface

This is a guide to best practices for university open-access (OA) policies. It's based on the type of policy adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, U of Kansas, U of Oregon, Trinity, Oberlin, Wake Forest, Duke, U of Puerto Rico, Hawaii - Manoa, Columbia, Strathmore U, Emory, Princeton, Bucknell, Jomo Kenyatta, Utah State, Bifröst, Miami, California - San Francisco, and the U Massachusetts Medical School (listing some but not all, and in chronological order). However, it includes recommendations that should be useful to institutions with other sorts of OA policy as well.

The guide may always be incomplete. In any case, this version is incomplete and doesn't cover every point on which "best practices" would be desirable or might be discernible. It doesn't cover points still under discussion by the authors, or points on which best practices have not yet emerged. We plan to revise and enlarge the guide over time, and to mark each edition with a version number and date.

For a PDF version of any section of the guide, click the "printable version" link in the left sidebar.

The guide is edited and written by Stuart Shieber and Peter Suber. Stuart is a Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard University. Peter is the Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, Special Advisor to the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The guide reflects their views as individuals, in consultation with many others (below), not necessarily the views of Harvard University.
- Emily Kilcer researched and wrote the section on Filling the repository. Emily is a Project Coordinator at the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and Research Assistant at the Harvard Open Access Project.
- This version was written in consultation with Ellen Finnie Duranceau (Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing and Licensing, MIT Libraries), Heather Joseph (Executive Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Iryna Kuchma (Open Access Programme Manager, Electronic Information for Libraries), Alma Swan (Convenor, Enabling Open Scholarship). ...///
- The guide is endorsed by ///
- For more detail, see the section on revising the guide.