Open Access

Open Access or OA is a digital publishing model in which a work is made freely available to the end user. The author of the work retains their copyright and right of attribution, but makes it freely available for download, copy and distribution. Authors may also elect to allow users of their work to modify the work or use it as the basis for a new work.

In the academic world, open access means free access to research results and research data, as well as use and adaptation of open educational resources or OERs. Open access benefits students by reducing the cost of course materials. Benefits to the research community include breaking down socio-economic barriers to access, wider distribution of research, and increased recognition for researchers.

Preamble

The staff of the J.R. Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library (VPOL) are committed to open access scholarship, and the distribution of research outputs online and free of cost, as a way to increase the visibility, usage, and impact of publicly-funded research. Open access to scholarship means more efficient dissemination of research compared with traditional publishing models and contributes to the creation of a just and equal society by providing barrier-free access to scholarly content to the broadest possible community. We champion and practice open access scholarship at Michigan Technological University with the aim to benefit scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public. We encourage the use of this statement as a model for use and endorsement by other members of the Michigan Tech community.

The intention of this statement is to encourage open access publishing of Michigan Tech's scholarly outputs. It should be read and interpreted consistently with Michigan Tech policies related to academic freedom and intellectual property. 

Open Access Statement

To make our research outputs as widely available and accessible as possible, the VPOL encourages the Michigan Tech community to disseminate their work openly and advocate for open access scholarship by employing one or more of the following strategies:

• Deposit a version of the publication in an open access repository

  • For example, the VPOL manages Michigan Tech's institutional repository, Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech 

  • Retrospective deposit of published scholarship is encouraged

• Publish in open access journals

• Openly disseminate any scholarly textual and non-textual outputs in a manner consistent with copyright agreements, legislation, and any granting agencies’ requirements

• Advocate in their work as editors, reviewers, and authors, for open scholarship

• Encourage and support colleagues to make their research openly available

Scope

Scholarship includes, but is not limited to:

• Articles

• Books and book chapters

• Conference papers, posters, proceedings, and presentations

• Other scholarship appropriate to the discipline (e.g. research data, source code, working papers, policy documents, etc.)

Attribution 

The statement was adapted with permission from McGill Library’s  Open Access Statement for McGill University Library.

Open Access Explained! is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license.