Best practices for university OA policies

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  • This is a guide to best practices for university OA policies.
  • Currently the guide is private in the sense that no web pages deliberately link to it. I believe that some pages automatically created by the wiki software will link to it. Is that private enough for our purposes?
  • When we decide it's ready, we can make all or some of it public.
  • Before release, get other key partners to make their own suggestions and sign on to the result, e.g. SPARC and EOS.
  • Eventually add recommendations on all important points, and link to literature and evidence in support of our recommendations. Consider writing an executive summary of the guide, for rapid orientation or busy committees.
  • Incorporate ideas and language from these docs:
  • Include a (dynamic) section on frequently asked questions and frequently heard objections and misunderstandings?
  • Eventually make a second guide for funder policies.

Drafting a policy

  • Grant of rights to the institution
    • The policy should be worded so that the faculty vote adopting the policy thereby grants the university certain non-exclusive rights to their future publications. It should not merely ask/encourage/require faculty to retain certain rights when they sign future publishing contracts.
  • Deposit in the repository
    • The policy should require faculty to deposit a certain version of their future journal publications in the institutional repository.
    • The version to be deposited is the final version of the peer-reviewed manuscript, incorporating all revisions made during the peer-review process.
  • Deposit timing
    • Faculty should deposit their peer-reviewed manuscripts at the time of acceptance for publication.
    • If the policy respects an embargo decision (from the author or publisher), the deposit should still be made at the time of acceptance. But it will be a dark deposit until the embargo period runs.


  • Waiver option
    • The waiver option should apply to the grant of rights to the institution, not to the deposit requirement.
    • The policy should make clear that waiver request will always be granted, no questions asked.

Adopting a policy

Implementing a policy

Other best-practice guides

  • PS has many in his offline notes. Will add them soon.