The University open access policy provides the public the benefit of open access dissemination of University of Delaware scholarship. It supports the faculty by making their work more available, and fostering greater impact, the retention of distribution rights, and preservation.
The Open Access resolution was passed unanimously by the Faculty Senate April 6, 2015.
Additional information about open access, deposits into UDSpace, waivers, and publisher information coming soon.
University of Delaware Faculty Open Access Policy
The faculty of the University of Delaware is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible and thus the faculty adopts the following policy:
Each faculty member grants to the University of Delaware permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each faculty member grants to the University of Delaware a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of their scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. 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 entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.
The University will automatically waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time upon express direction by a faculty member or their designee.
Provision of each article shall be as convenient as possible for faculty. Each faculty member will, upon request, provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version of each article to the University of Delaware Library in an appropriate format.
The University of Delaware Library will make the articles available to the public in an open access repository, UDSpace or its successor. The policy will be reviewed during the 2018-2019 academic year, and a report on utilization and dissemination will be presented to the Faculty Senate at that time.
The text of this policy was adapted from the model policy language provide by the Harvard Office of Scholarly Communication https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/modelpolicy, March 2015 .
Amendment to Publication Agreement
The University of Delaware Faculty Open Access Policy operates automatically to give UD a license to scholarly articles faculty members complete after its adoption, April 6, 2015.
To be thorough, the University recommends 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 the University of Delaware that permits open-access distribution. The University provides a suitable form or addendum for this purpose. Whether you use the addendum or not, the license to the University still will have force.
A downloadable copy of the publication addendum and instructions may be found below.
If you have questions about open access or how to submit an article, please contact the Library Scholarly Communication staff.