Open Access Policy (Policy 74)

Purpose (IL Public Act 098-0295)

Governors State University (GovState or the “University”) is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible. As part of a public university system, GovState faculty members are dedicated to making their scholarship available to the people of Illinois and the world. Furthermore, GovState faculty members recognize the benefits that accrue to themselves as individual scholars and to the scholarly enterprise from such wide dissemination, including greater recognition, more thorough review, consideration and critique and a general increase in scientific, scholarly and critical knowledge. GovState faculty further recognizes that by this Policy, and with the assistance of the University, they can more easily and collectively reserve rights that might otherwise be signed away, often unnecessarily, in agreements with publishers.

Grant of License and Limitations

Each Faculty member grants to Governors State University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, for the purpose of making their articles widely and freely available in an open access repository, except as stated in Section III. This Policy does not transfer copyright ownership, which remains with faculty authors under existing Governors State University policy.

1. Based upon the Budapest Open Access Initiative guidelines (2002) and for the purpose of this Policy, faculty scholarly articles are defined as articles that describe the fruits of their research and that they give to the world for the sake of inquiry and knowledge without expectation of payment. Such articles are typically presented in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and conference proceedings. Many of the written products of faculty effort, including but not limited to books, popular articles, commissioned articles, fiction and poetry, encyclopedia entries, ephemeral writings, lecture notes, lecture videos or other copyrighted works are not encompassed under this notion of scholarly article as used in this Policy. This classification is not meant to denigrate or diminish the impact of such writings. Rather, these scholarly products are generated as part of separate publishing or distribution mechanisms that function in different ways and whose shortcomings, if any, the present Policy does not and is not meant to address.
2. The Policy applies to all scholarly articles authored as the primary author (corresponding author of record) while the person is a GovState faculty member except for any articles published before the effective date of this Policy and any articles for which the member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the effective date of this Policy. Upon express direction by the faculty member without interference by any other party, GovState will waive the license for a particular article or delay/embargo access to the article. This request should be made to the Office of the Provost. The opt-out option is not available when external funding sources mandate publication in an open access venue. This opt-out policy is meant to provide the utmost flexibility for faculty scholarly pursuits.
3. Faculty members wishing to opt-out must provide a citation for each work.
4. After acceptance of an article, the faculty member will contact the Office of the Provost to determine appropriate processes for meeting the requirements of this policy.

1. To assist GovState in disseminating and archiving the articles, faculty commit to helping obtain copies of their articles. Specifically, each faculty member who does not choose to opt-out will provide an electronic copy of his or her final version of the article to GovState for inclusion in an open access repository. When appropriate, a faculty member may instead notify GovState through the Office of the Provost if the article will be freely available in another repository or as an open-access publication. Faculty members who have chosen to opt-out may nonetheless deposit a copy with GovState or elsewhere for archival purposes.
2. Notwithstanding the above, this Policy does not in any way prescribe or limit the venue of publication. This Policy neither requires nor prohibits the payment of fees or publication costs by authors. Whenever possible and contingent upon funding, GovState will provide support for publishing costs for open access journals or journals with an open access publishing option. Providing or not providing such funding cannot be interpreted as a form of value judgment in regards to the article, author or publication outlet. This Policy section is consistent with the recommendations set forth by COPE (Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity).

Oversight of Policy

This is a policy of the Governors State University Board of Trustees. Any alterations or amendments of the Policy will require approval by the GovState Board of Trustees. The Provost and the Open Access Committee will be jointly responsible for implementing this Policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application and recommending any modifications. An Open Access Policies Committee appointed jointly by the Provost and Faculty Senate will be established to develop mechanisms that would render implementation and compliance with the Policy consistent with the public purposes stated above and as convenient as possible for GovState faculty members. The Open Access Policies Committee will consist of five members: one representative from each academic college and one representative from the University Library. The Provost, in direct consultation with the Educational Policies Committee of the Faculty Senate and the Open Access Policies Committee, will review the Policy every three years.

Acknowledgement 

This Policy is indebted in part to authorship policies from the: University of California, Harvard University, Budapest Open Access Initiative and COPE, the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity.