Student scholarship, whether conducted independently or in close collaboration with faculty, is an integral part of the Ursinus College mission to “enable students to become independent, responsible, and thoughtful individuals.” The preservation and continued access to the scholarly work of Ursinus students is a vital part of the mission of Myrin Library. In order to support the preservation of student work and make it more widely available and useful, a digital repository (Digital Commons) has been established to provide a central location where student work in all forms can be collected and, where appropriate, openly accessed. Student work preserved in the repository will include Honors Papers and may also encompass select Summer Fellows projects or other faculty-sponsored independent works. Students and faculty mentors are encouraged to discuss the best format for the preservation of their work; digital images, video, and audio files are welcome.
Because the nature of research and scholarly publication varies by discipline, students are encouraged to discuss with their faculty advisor the implications of making their work openly accessible. Works preserved in the repository need not be fully openly accessible on the web. The full text of a work can remain restricted or “embargoed” while the associated data (title, author, keywords) remain discoverable on the web via the repository. Students, in conjunction with their faculty mentors, can choose to change the status of their work in the repository at any time by contacting the Scholarly Communications Librarian. It is the responsibility of the student to comply with any departmental guidelines regarding the level of access granted to works within that department. In cases where ongoing faculty research or sensitive data is present, the work will not be made openly accessible.
In order to facilitate the prompt preservation of work in the repository, students are asked to ensure that their work contains accurate bibliographic information such as a concise abstract, keywords and the proper departmental and faculty attributions. Honors Papers should be submitted in Word or PDF format and the desired access level noted. Associated files (PowerPoint slides, e.g.) should be submitted at the same time. Other works of exceptional quality are welcome where appropriate and should be nominated by the faculty mentor for inclusion in the repository. All submitted works and related data are reviewed by the Scholarly Communications Librarian prior to inclusion in the repository. The librarian will consult with faculty before enabling open access to any student work.
This Statement was endorsed by the faculty in Spring 2015.
Open access as discussed in relation to this policy refers to free availability of journal articles on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful, noncommercial purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
No. Nearly verbatim policies have been adopted at many institutions including Amherst, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Lafayette, MIT, Oberlin and Princeton, to name a few.
The policy operates automatically to give Ursinus a license in any scholarly articles faculty members complete after its adoption. We recommend that you communicate this policy to your publisher and add to any copyright license or assignment for scholarly articles an addendum stating that the agreement is subject to this prior license. That way, you will avoid agreeing to give the publisher rights that are inconsistent with the prior license to Ursinus that permits open-access distribution.
You have a number of options. One is to try to persuade the publisher that it should accept Ursinus’s non-exclusive license in order to be able to publish your article. Another is to seek a different publisher. A third is to consult with the Library or legal counsel about taking steps to address the publisher’s specific concerns. Or simply opt-out for that particular article.
It applies to “scholarly articles,” typically presented in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and conference proceedings. These works are given to the world with no expectation of payment. Many written products are not encompassed under this specific notion of scholarly article, such as books, popular articles, commissioned articles, fiction and poetry, encyclopedia entries, ephemeral writings, lecture notes, lecture videos, or other copyrighted works. The Open Access Policy is not meant to address these kinds of works.
Ideally, the author’s final version of the article; that is, the author’s manuscript with any changes made as a result of the peer-review process, but prior to publisher’s copy-editing or formatting.
The policy doesn’t apply to articles that were completed before adoption of the policy nor to any articles for which you entered into an incompatible publishing agreement before the policy was adopted. The policy also does not apply to any articles you write after leaving Ursinus.
Yes. Each joint author of an article holds copyright in the article and, individually, has the authority to grant Ursinus a non-exclusive license.
Each co-author in a jointly written article owns the copyright. Under U.S. copyright law, any co-author has the right to grant a nonexclusive permission to others. It would be up to the co-author to decide whether to opt out of the policy for a given article to accommodate a co-author.
Ursinus’s license would still have force, because it would have been granted (through this policy) prior to the signing of the publisher contract. If the publisher expresses concern that cannot be remedied, you could consult legal counsel or opt out for the given article.
Faculty who opt out of the policy can still choose to deposit the article in the repository if they wish, as long as the agreement signed with the publisher reserves that right. There are many benefits to depositing: ensuring that an easily accessible, permanently archived copy will be available for use and re-use in teaching; sharing copies with other scholars; republishing or reusing elements of an article; facilitating the creation of a dossier of publications in the promotion and tenure review process; and creating a metadata record that facilitates discoverability and citation of work.
It would be possible to remove a paper, particularly in cases involving a legal dispute.
No. This policy grants specific nonexclusive permissions to Ursinus. You still retain ownership and complete control of the copyright in your writings, subject only to this prior permission. You can exercise your copyrights in any way you see fit, including transferring them to a publisher if you so desire. However, if you do so, Ursinus would still retain its license and the right to distribute the article from its repository. Also, if your article arises, in whole or in part, from NIH-funded research and was accepted for publication after April 7, 2008, you must retain sufficient rights to comply with NIH’s Public Access Policy.
At the moment, there are two primary versions of open access dissemination for research publications: “gold OA” (open access journals) and “green OA” (pre- or post-print deposits in open access repositories). Both of these approaches are intended to lower the access barriers to scholarly research output. The deposit of published materials into open access repositories ("green") does not involve author fees.
Adapted from the Harvard, MIT, and University of California Faculty Open Access Policy FAQs
The Faculty of Ursinus College is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible in the interest of making it available to the world so that all can benefit from it. The Faculty sees open access to its scholarship as a form of civic engagement, a central tenet of education at Ursinus for both faculty and students. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to Ursinus College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles1 in a digital repository and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to Ursinus College 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, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others2, including Faculty members, to do the same. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member enters into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement. The Dean’s Office will waive application of the license or delay access3 for a specific period of time upon the express direction4 of a faculty member.
Each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version5 of each article in an appropriate format (such as PDF) no later than the date of its publication6 at no charge to the library’s scholarly communications representative. We recognize that scholarship takes on many forms and encourage the submission of performances, recordings, visual art and any other form of scholarly output to the collection.
The Office of the Dean of the Faculty will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time.
This policy is based on the language of the Harvard open access model, which has become the standard for such policies at both small liberal arts colleges and universities. For examples, see http://www.brynmawr.edu/openaccess/; https://library.lafayette.edu/open-access/lafayette-college-open-access-resolution/
Notes
1. The Budapest Open Access Initiative defines scholarly articles as the fruits of research given to the world for the sake of inquiry and knowledge without expectation of payment. These are typically found in scholarly peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.
2. Authors retain the rights to their work, including the ability to distribute it, use it to teach, and make derivative works from it.
3. An embargo period allows us to deposit the article while adhering to publisher’s wishes and avoiding a waiver.
4. The waiver request cannot be denied and can be fulfilled through the use of a simple web form.
5. The requested version is the author’s version that has been accepted for publication. It has completed the final peer review and revision process. It typically does not include the publisher’s final typesetting and pagination.
6. The posting of articles in the repository is intended to supplement traditional publishing venues, not preempt them.
Notes are based on Stuart Shieber’s notes to the Harvard open access policy model. Shieber is Faculty Director, Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication.