Types of University Open Access Policies
The majority of university open access policies provide for the mandatory deposit of research work by academic staff members in an institutional or subject-based open access repository (Open Access Mandate). At the same time, access to these works may be restricted in certain cases, either due to publisher policies that do not allow self-archiving (approximately 10% of publishers) or due to embargo periods imposed by publishers.
To address the issues arising from the transfer of copyright to publishers (Copyright Transfer Agreements), many universities in the USA have established policies that require faculty members to grant the university non-exclusive, irrevocable, and non-commercial rights to all their future scientific publications during their tenure. This way, even if copyright is transferred to the publisher, the rights granted to the university take precedence. Other policies require authors to retain certain copyrights in order to allow the free dissemination of their work (at least for non-commercial purposes), usually through addenda to the copyright transfer agreements between authors and publishers.
In contrast, most open access policies of universities in the United Kingdom and Europe do not focus on copyright retention, but rather impose the mandatory deposit of final manuscripts in the institutional open access repository. Access to these works is then determined by copyright agreements between authors and publishers. Such policies typically follow the green route to open access, while in cases where the gold route is preferred, financial support is often provided to authors to cover publication fees.
- Approved Open Access Policy of the University of Macedonia
- Approved Regulation of the Institutional Repository of Academic Research (RUOMO)