Policies & Legislation
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Follow up from The Right to Deposit webinar: statement and early signatories
Approximately 350 attendees joined the webinar The Right to Deposit – Uniform Guidance to Ensure Author Compliance and Public Access on April 16, 2024. The event explored the conflicting messages authors face in the course of publishing their work and attempting to comply with the institutional, funder and publisher policies. Approaches discussed that could create more clarity in particular for federally funded authors include institutional open access policies as well as reliance on the federal purpose license. Like institutional open access policies, the federal purpose license establishes a pre-existing right to deposit an article. At the conclusion of the event, […]
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‘Wind in our sails’: University of California hails White House guidance accelerating public access to federally funded research
Statement from the University of California Libraries A year is a long time in the world of scientific research. The omicron variant of COVID-19 was identified in November 2021. The James Webb Space Telescope launched in December 2021 and sent back its first images just last month. Access to the latest science is the best way to solve today’s problems and accelerate future discoveries — and that is why the White House guidance issued this week to make federally funded research freely and immediately available is so important. A 2013 Obama-era policy established a requirement that most federally funded, peer-reviewed […]
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Draft policy on University of California research data open for second round of review
The draft of the Presidential Policy on University of California Research Data is now open for a second round of systemwide review. The purposes of the policy are to 1) clarify ownership of and responsibility for research data generated during the course of University Research, 2) encourage active data management practices, and 3) provide guidance with respect to procedures when a researcher leaves the University. Ownership of research data by the UC Regents is a long-standing precept originally articulated in Regulation 4 (Academic Personnel Manual 020), where it states “Notebooks and other original records of the research are the property […]
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UC issues revised copyright ownership policy
The University of California Policy on Copyright Ownership has been revised for the first time since 1992. The revised policy reflects a long development process, starting with a working group study in 2013 and culminating in a recent round of full systemwide review. As described in its issuance letter, the revised policy aims to: Expand eligibility to own copyrights. The definition of “Academic Authors” in the revised policy is simplified and expands the pool of those eligible to own copyright. Among other things, it eliminates references to Academic Personnel Manual (APM) titles. Expand and clarify the pool of works eligible […]
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Draft policy on Research Data and Tangible Research Materials currently under review
A new Presidential Policy on University of California Research Data and Tangible Research Materials is currently under systemwide review. This draft policy addresses issues concerning the ownership of data and tangible materials generated during the course of UC research. All members of the UC community are encouraged to read the policy and accompanying information available below and submit any comments by April 7, 2021. As stated in the policy, “Access to and use and retention of Research Data and Tangible Research Materials are not only critical to substantiate results, but also to provide a foundation for the advancement of scholarship. […]
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University of California Issues Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations
On March 25, 2020, the University of California issued a Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations. The systemwide policy, which aligns with those already in place at individual UC campuses, “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (“embargo”) obtained by the student.” Theses and dissertations already made open access can be read in eScholarship, UC’s open access repository and scholarly publishing platform. With this policy, “the University affirms the long-standing tradition that […]
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New version of UC Copyright Ownership Policy open for review
[Editor’s note: this post is kept as an archive, but since the policy is no longer under review, some of the links go to pages that do not exist. For current UC policies, visit policy.ucop.edu.] The University of California’s Copyright Ownership Policy was last revised in 1992. A new draft policy is currently under systemwide review. All members of the UC community are encouraged to read the policy and accompanying information on the Academic Personnel and Programs site and submit any comments by December 15. As described in the cover letter from Provost Michael Brown, the proposed policy revisions aim to […]
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Proposed Presidential Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations
[Editor’s note: this post is kept as an archive, but since the policy is no longer under review, some of the links go to pages that do not exist. For current UC policies, visit policy.ucop.edu.] A proposed new presidential policy on open access theses and dissertations is open for systemwide review until February 28, 2018. All members of the UC community are invited to comment on the draft policy. Visit the UC Academic Affairs website to read the draft policy, a cover letter with instructions on where to send comments, and a set of Frequently Asked Questions. The draft policy […]
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Does the UC Open Access Policy miss the mark? Depends on which mark.
Institutional open access policies often get a bad rap. Critics point to their lack of “teeth”; their poor compliance rates; their failure, thus far, to effect substantial change within the economically unsustainable and locked down scholarly publishing environment. Motivated by the desire to free all scholarship from publisher access restrictions and the equally ambitious goal of empowering all authors to retain rights to their scholarly publications, these policies struggle mightily under the weight of expectations. But maybe we are expecting too much — or not enough.
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Groundbreaking University of California policy extends free access to all scholarly articles written by UC employees
Today the University of California expands the reach of its research publications by issuing a Presidential Open Access Policy, allowing future scholarly articles authored by all UC employees to be freely shared with readers worldwide. Building on UC’s previously-adopted Academic Senate open access (OA) policies, this new policy enables the university system and associated national labs to provide unprecedented access to scholarly research authored by clinical faculty, lecturers, staff researchers, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and librarians – just to name a few. Comprising ten campuses, five medical centers, and nearly 200,000 employees, the UC system is responsible for over 2% […]
