Resolution Adopting Principles of Open Access of Research

University Senate

SenEx, April 19, 2022

Approved by SenEx, April 19, 2022

Approved by University Senate, April 28, 2022

 

The University of Kansas has long been among the leaders in Open Access. The Faculty Senate took action in 2005 to establish KU ScholarWorks, the digital repository of KU, and, in 2009, by passing an Open Access Policy (https://openaccess.ku.edu/) that grants KU a non-exclusive license to articles published by KU faculty. Since then, further actions have been taken to expand the variety of ways that make KU's scholarly work visible to other scholars, students, and the community.

Today, more than ever, we recognize the importance and value of publishing scholarship freely and immediately, without restrictions or barriers, in a manner that increases equitable access. We believe that Open Access will allow the communities we serve, close and far, to benefit the most by easily accessing, reading, and using the scholarship we produce. Additionally, Open Access benefits our scholars by increasing visibility and the potential impact of their research in academia and beyond. The broadest possible access to KU research is fundamental to maximizing the potential of our discoveries to change the world.

Therefore, the University Senate adopts the following resolution to increase Open Access.

First, the University Senate strongly encourages KU scholars when they publish:

  1. to seek high quality and rigorous peer-reviewed journals that are broadly recognized by scholarly communities as suitable to meet the standards of promotion and tenure, that are already published open access or that, when possible, allow open access archiving in the KU ScholarWorks; and
  2. to submit their published research or final draft to the KU ScholarWorks as soon as possible after acceptance for publication, and preferably no later than the following year's annual review; and
  3. to acknowledge and reaffirm the KU Faculty Open Access Policy, which grants a non-exclusive license to KU in order to openly archive published journal articles in the KU ScholarWorks repository.

Second, the University Senate endorses the following principles to guide journal negotiations. We expect negotiations with journals to prioritize the following:

  1. prioritize openness by crafting agreements that advance open access and other methods of open dissemination for research outputs; and
  2. seek transparency by rejecting non-disclosure language in agreements and sharing them publicly; and
  3. be financially sustainable by prioritizing agreements that provide long-term financial sustainability for our libraries and support a diverse scholarly publishing landscape; and
  4. secure the rights of authors to publish Open Access and not require them to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights; and
  5. require publishers to directly deposit scholarly articles in KU's institutional digital repository immediately upon publication or provide tools/mechanisms that facilitate immediate deposit; and
  6. require publishers to provide digital access to subscribed content as a standard part of all contracts, with no restrictions on non-consumptive, computational analysis of the corpus of subscribed content; and
  7. require publishers to ensure their content's long-term digital preservation and accessibility through participation in trusted digital archives; and
  8. not pay more than a fair and sustainable price to publishers for value-added services based on transparent and cost-based pricing models.