Proposed Policy on Open Access to Research Articles at the University of Illinois
Approved Board of Trustees - 5/19/2016
Whereas: The University of Illinois is a world-class engine of knowledge in diverse disciplines.
Whereas: The Faculty of the University of Illinois is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible.
Whereas: This research and scholarship benefits the region, Illinois, and the rest of the world.
Whereas: Open access allows for the greatest dissemination of research and scholarship.
Whereas: The Faculty recognizes the benefits that accrue to them 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.
Whereas: The General Rules of the University of Illinois affirm that Faculty retain “copyright rights to academic copyrightable works” (Article III. Section 4(a)).
Whereas: The state of Illinois has expressed interest in the practices on Open Access in higher education institutions of the state through Public Act 098-0295.
Whereas: The University Senates Conference endorsed the University of California Open Access Policy as an acceptable basis for the University of Illinois own policy.
Be It Resolved that the Faculty at the University of Illinois adopts and implements the following policy on Open Access.
Grant of License and Limitations
Each Faculty member, for the purpose of making his or her scholarly articles widely and freely available in an open access repository, grants to the University of Illinois 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. Any other systematic uses of the licensed articles by the University of Illinois must be approved by the Campus Senate. This policy does not transfer copyright ownership, which generally remains with Faculty authors under existing University of Illinois General Rules (Article III. Section 4(a)).
Scope and Waiver
This Open Access policy covers all current Faculty members as defined by the Statutes: “members of the academic staff with the rank or title in that unit of “professor, associate professor, or assistant professor who are tenured or receiving probationary credit toward tenure, and those administrators in the direct line of responsibility for academic affairs” (Article II: Section 3.(a).1).
The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the creator is a member of the Faculty except for (1) scholarly articles that fall outside of the scope of copyrightable works described in General Rules Article III, Sections 4a and 4c; (2) any articles published before the adoption of this policy; and (3) any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.
Upon express direction by a Faculty member, the University of Illinois will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time.
Deposit of Articles
To assist the University of Illinois in disseminating and archiving the articles, Faculty commit to helping the campus obtain copies of the articles. Specifically, each Faculty member who does not request a waiver of the licensing requirement as described above will provide an electronic copy of his or her final version of the article (i.e., the final author’s version post peer-review” or the “final published version” where possible) to the designated repository . If applicable, a Faculty member may instead notify the University of Illinois that the article will be made openly available in another repository or in an open-access publication, or made available via a link to public access versions of those articles on publisher websites. Faculty members who have requested a permanent waiver of the licensing requirement may nonetheless deposit a copy in the repository for archival purposes.
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.
Oversight of Policy
The Campus Senate, through an appropriate existing committee, and the Office of the Provost will be jointly responsible for implementing this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending any changes to the Faculty of the campus. All the responsible parties will review the policy within three years, and present a report to the Campus Senate. This report shall be transmitted to the Vice President of Academic Affairs. The VPAA is encouraged to gather the reports from the three campuses and present the results to the University Senates Conference and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
The Campus Senate urges the responsible units to develop and monitor mechanisms that would render implementation and compliance with the policy as convenient for the Faculty as possible.