The Open Access Policy Committee is developing a list of frequently asked questions and responses to those questions. This list will expand as new questions are asked. The following is a preliminary list of FAQ and responses will be provided soon.
What are key benefits of open access to UNT's scholarly works?
What is the benefit to a UNT community member to have his/her article in the open access repository?
Why should UNT adopt this open access policy now?
What is Green Open Access compared with Gold Open Access?
Does a UNT community member change his/her publishing venue?
Are UNT community members required to publish in an "open access journal"?
Does a UNT community member do anything differently with his/her copyright?
What is required by the draft UNT policy?
What opt-out or waivers are available to UNT community members?
What will be the "faculty burden" to comply with the immediate deposit requirement?
What access levels will be available for deposited works?
Can authors be subject to liability?
What scholarly works are covered by the draft policy?
How can I check to see if my journal allows public, open access?
Can I deposit a draft of the publication and meet the policy requirement?
What is the process for depositing my material?
Who should I contact if I have questions?
Who should co-authors or collaborating institutions contact if they have questions?
What IS Open Access?
According to Stevan Harnad's Symposium presentation, OA is :
- Free
- Immediate
- Permanent
- Full-text
- Online
- Access
to scholarly works, and specifically, to the peer-reviewed journal literature authored by UNT community members.
According to Stevan Harnad's Symposium presentation, OA is not specifically about:
- Copyright reform
- Publishing reform
- Peer review reform
- Digital preservation
- "Freeing knowledge"
The UNT policy does address long-term preservation and stewardship of digital scholarly works.
What are key benefits of open access to UNT's scholarly works?
Open access is primarily about broad dissemination of UNT community members's scholarly works. UNT's open access policy enables new and complementary access to UNT scholarly works. Although journal publishers do make articles available, there may be access constraints to those articles. Open access provides a complementary access method to what journal publishers are currently offering.
In addition, Stevan Harnad provides the following three benefits to open access:
- To maximize the update, usage, applications, and impact of the research output of UNT.
- To measure and reward the update, usage, applications, and impact of the research output of UNT.
- To collect, manage, and showcase a permanent record of the research output and impact of UNT.
What is the benefit to a UNT community member to have his/her article in the open access repository?
Why should UNT adopt this open access policy now?
Why a requirement to deposit?
What is Green Open Access compared with Gold Open Access?
Does a UNT community member change his/her publishing venue?
No. Authors continue to prepare articles for publication in the same way they always have. The choice of journals in which to publish is left entirely to the authors. Open access is not about changing the publishing behavior of authors.
Are UNT community members required to publish in an "open access journal"?
Faculty in Mathematics, Physics, and other disciplines have a practice of publishing preprints on open access preprint servers such as arXiv. Do we need to do anything differently because of the UNT policy?
No. A "preprint" is not the same as an "accepted manuscript", and the policy refers to accepted manuscripts and version of record (see policy for definitions of accepted manuscript and version of record). Faculty members will continue to publish their preprints as the have been doing. There is no requirement for duplicate submission of the preprint into UNT Libraries scholarly works repository, but faculty members are encouraged to deposit their preprints at UNT if they desire.
Does a community member do anything differently with his/her copyright?
No. The journal publisher's existing policies regarding copyright and copyright transfer are not affected by the UNT open access policy.
What is required by the draft UNT policy?
The only requirement in the policy relates to peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication journal articles. For this type of scholarly works, UNT Community Members are required to deposit a copy of the version allowed by the publisher in the UNT Libraries scholarly works repository. The deposit is to be made not later than the date of publication of the version of record of the journal article by the publisher.
What opt-out or waivers are available to UNT community members?
A UNT Community Member can request a waiver from granting UNT a license for dissemination and preservation of a peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication journal article. The specific procedure for requesting a waiver will be developed as part of the implementation of the policy, but the intent is to minimize the effort by the UNT Community Member to initiate the request. Most likely it will be done electronically through the submission system, which will be specified as part of the implementation.
What will be the "faculty burden" to comply with the immediate deposit requirement?
Do UNT community members have to pay money to make their articles open access in the UNT Libraries repository?
What access levels will be available for deposited works?
We are currently proposing the following levels of access to scholarly works deposited in the UNT Libraries repository:
- Metadata/citation data only accessible: This would expose the citation to wide discovery through Internet searching. Instructions would be given to contact the author, or publisher, for access to the article.
- Embargoed: An embargo on access for a designated length of time may be chosen, and at the end of that time, the article becomes openly available.
- Open access to the UNT Community only: Access only for UNT authenticated users (e.g., faculty, students, staff currently affiliated with UNT).
- Open access: This is the default level and provides access to the metadata and work for all users.
Copyright is not affected by access. Copyright is still owned by the author, or the publisher, if the author signs over copyright in the publishing process.
Can authors be subject to liability?
Given that the policy explicitly states that UNT will follow publishers' policies related to the extent of open access of the self-archived article and which version of the journal article that can be made available (e.g., accepted manuscript, version of record, etc.), we believe there will be no liability for either the author or UNT.
What scholarly works are covered by the draft policy?
The policy has two goals. For long-term stewardship of all scholarly works created by UNT Community Members, they are encouraged to deposit their works in the UNT Libraries scholarly works repository. A subset of those scholarly works, namely, the peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication journal articles, is covered by the policy with the requirement of immediate deposit and the setting of the access level to Open Access Upon Deposit. However, the access level and the granting of the license to UNT by the author will be aligned with the publishers' policies. Further, the author can request, for an individual article, a waiver from granting the license, and the author can request a more restricted access level than what is allowed by the publisher's policy.
How can I check to see if my journal allows public, open access?
The RoMEO Service of the SHERPA Project maintains a database that tracks publisher copyright and self-archiving policies. RoMEO is a searchable database at: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/. UNT Community Members can search either journal titles or publishers names to find the specifics of the policies related to open access.
In the development of the implementation for the policy, the current plan is for UNT Libraries to offer support to UNT Community Members in checking publishers' policies regarding self-archiving and open access to ensure UNT is in compliance with those policies.
Can I deposit a draft of the publication and meet the policy requirement?
To ensure the highest quality of content in the scholarly works repository, the policy identifies for peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication journal articles that an author deposits the "accepted manuscript" (or the "version of record if allowed by the publisher's policy). It is that version that is required. For any other scholarly works that a UNT Community Member wants to deposit in the UNT Libraries scholarly works repository, the policy notes that the author determines what constitutes the "final version" that is deposited.
What is the process for depositing my material?
There will be several ways for UNT Community Members to deposit their scholarly works in the UNT Libraries scholarly works repository. The specific details and options for depositing will be developed during Summer 2010, with input and suggestions from UNT Community Members. The processes will have the design goal of minimizing burdern on depositors.
Who should I contact if I have questions?
Who should co-authors or collaborating institutions contact if they have questions?
Who operates the repository?
UNT Libraries operates the digital infrastructure and repository that will hold the UNT scholarly works.
