The Academic Senate of the University of California adopted an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013, ensuring that future scholarly articles authored by faculty at all 10 UC campuses will be made available to the public at no charge.

The Open Access Policy Implementation team at the California Digital Library is pleased to announce the November 1^st launch of a set of tools and resources designed to support the UC OA Policy and help campuses spread the word to faculty who are ready to deposit their scholarly articles in eScholarship (UC’s open access repository), looking for more information about the policy, or seeking a waiver or embargo confirmation.

New eScholarship Deposit Workflow

The new eScholarship deposit workflow offers an efficient and intuitive submission process, making it easy for UC faculty to deposit their work in accordance with the policy.

• View a quick-start guide to learn more about the deposit process.

Faculty from UC Irvine, UCLA, and UCSF should now begin depositing articles with a publication agreement signed after July 24, 2013 in eScholarship. Deposit of articles by faculty on the remaining UC campuses is expected to be formalized by the Academic Senate in Fall 2014, although faculty throughout the UC System are welcome to begin depositing immediately if they wish.

Office of Scholarly Communication Site

The new Office of Scholarly Communication website offers resources to help faculty sort through the details of the policy and fulfill its requirements.

• Visit the UC Open Access Policy page, which connects to the FAQ, deposit workflow, waiver/embargo generator, and more.  For easy access, use the URL: uc-oa.info

The OSC site is also intended as a more general resource about current issues in scholarly communication for UC faculty, researchers, students, and staff.

Get the Word Out!

The “Get the Word Out” page on the OSC site offers tools for alerting faculty to the policy and efficiently directing them to the deposit and waiver/embargo workflows, including:

• A 90-second video introducing UC faculty to the policy and motivating them to deposit their work in eScholarship.
• Transferable “ads” that point to the resources available on the OSC site – and can be included on university and library sites, departmental pages, and other locations that will be visible to UC faculty.
• A slide deck that can be used or adapted for presentations about the UC Open Access Policy.

Finally, this work has truly been a collaborative effort, strongly informed by colleagues across the UC campuses, who have provided information, feedback, testing, and other assistance and input as we developed the new deposit workflow and the accompanying materials. We look forward to continuing this important work with all of you!

Please contact osc@ucop.edu with any questions, feedback, or suggestions.