From Peter Suber's Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_02_11_fosblogarchive.html#117168794313780563
The University of California is considering a Draft Open Access Policy
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/openaccesspolicy/OpenAccess-Policy-DRAFT1-29-2007.pdf
dated January 29, 2007 (but based on a proposal from May 30, 2006).
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/assembly/may2006/copyright0506.pdf
Here's the heart of it:
...University of California faculty shall routinely grant to
The Regents of the University of California a license to place in a
non-commercial open-access online repository the faculty member's
scholarly work published in a scholarly journal or conference
proceedings. In the event a faculty member is required to assign all
or a part of his or her copyright rights in such scholarly work to
a publisher as part of a publication agreement, the faculty member
shall retain in the publication agreement the right to grant the
foregoing license to the Regents. Faculty may opt out of this policy
for any specific work or invoke a specified delay before such work
appears in an open-access repository in accordance with the opt-out
mechanism set forth below....
The University of California eScholarship Repository
http://repositories.cdlib.org/
is an open access repository in which UC faculty-authored materials
can be placed to meet the goals of the policy....
The draft policy also includes a draft author's addendum, to help
authors retain the rights they need to authorize OA.
The policy was drafted by a working group convened by Wyatt R. Hume,
the UC's Provost and Executive Vice President, who has asked (February
7, 2007) the UC campuses to review it by May 20, 2007.
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/openaccesspolicy/chancellors-oakley-open-access-policy.pdf
Also see the policy home page and FAQ.
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/openaccesspolicy/
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/openaccesspolicy/oa_policy_faq.html
Comment by Peter Suber: This is a strong policy for the largest
university system in the US, and well along the process toward
adoption. It could trigger a wave of similar policies across
the country. It doesn't directly require faculty to deposit
their work in an OA repository, but it does require them to give
the university permission to disseminate an OA copy. (Like other
university mandates, this one has exceptions and faculty may opt out
for specific works.) One gets the impression that the university will
actually provide OA whenever it has permission, but that is unstated.
If we assume it, then this "permission mandate" becomes an OA mandate.
Definitely one to watch.
Peter Suber, Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_02_11_fosblogarchive.html#117168794313780563
Comment by Stevan Harnad:
The UC policy is definitely a step forward. It could be optimized,
trivially easily, by simply adding a requirement to deposit (or
allow proxy deposit of) the author's final, peer-reviewed draft
(the postprint) immediately upon acceptance for publication
(no exceptions, no delays) and merely applying the current
permission/delay contigency to the setting of access to the deposit as
OA. (Otherwise, the access can be provisionally set as Closed Access
and fair use can be provided via the EMAIL EPRINT REQUEST button:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html ).
Received on Sat Feb 17 2007 - 07:25:42 GMT