Strategies for Success: Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions


469

Strategies for Success: Open 
Access Policies at North American 
Educational Institutions

Christine Fruin and Shan Sutton

Christine Fruin is Scholarly Communications Librarian at University of Florida; e-mail: christine.ross@
ufl.edu. Shan Sutton is Vice Dean of University Libraries at University of Arizona; e-mail: ssutton@email.
arizona.edu. © 2016 Christine Fruin and Shan Sutton, Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) CC BY-NC.

Recognizing the paucity of quantitative and qualitative data from North 
American educational institutions that have pursued open access policies, 
the authors devised a survey to collect information on the characteristics 
of these institutions, as well as the elements of the open access policies, 
the methods of promoting these policies, faculty concerns about the poli-
cies, and how those concerns have been addressed. The data collected 
through survey results from fifty-one institutions can inform the strategic 
decisions being made by other institutions considering an open access 
policy and illustrates the essential roles that academic libraries can play 
in the development and passage of open access policies.

he establishment of open access policies at North American universities and 
colleges can be traced back to 2008 when open access emerged as a viable 
topic of policy development. At that time, the National Institutes of Health 
(NIH) enacted a policy requiring all published research funded by the NIH 

to be available in the publicly accessible database PubMed within twelve months of 
commercial publication.1 That same year, Harvard University’s College of Liberal Arts 
and Sciences became the first North American institution to enact an open access policy, 
which granted Harvard a nonexclusive license to make the scholarly works of the fac-
ulty in that college available for noncommercial use through Harvard’s institutional 
repository.2 More recently, most of the major federal funding agencies impacted by 
the 2013 executive order by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 
directing the development of public access plans have adopted such plans. At the state 
government level, California, Illinois, and New York have proposed or enacted laws 
to ensure public access to publicly funded research.3 

Meanwhile, well over fifty educational institutions, including MIT, Duke Uni-
versity, and the University of California system, have enacted or are in the process 
of developing open access policies at institutional, college, and departmental lev-
els.4 To support these institutions, the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions 
was formed in 2011 to share information and illuminate opportunities for moving 
faculty-led open access policies forward at member institutions and advocate for 
open access nationally and internationally.5 Further, the persons instrumental in 
drafting and implementing the Harvard open access policy have released a living 

doi:10.5860/crl.77.4.469 crl16-809



470  College & Research Libraries July 2016

document entitled “Good Practices for University Open-Access Policies,” which 
includes recommendations to address common open access misconceptions, policy 
terms to include or avoid, and strategies for policy implementation.6 These recom-
mendations stem from the experiences of Harvard and institutions that have adopted 
a Harvard-style policy. However, additional quantitative and qualitative data from 
institutions that have enacted or are in the midst of drafting policies are needed 
to better inform the strategic decisions being made by institutions considering an 
open access policy. These data are also needed to better understand the essential 
roles that academic libraries have played in the development and passage of open 
access policies.

Literature Review
A review of the literature reveals a lack of a comprehensive study of North American 
institutions that have enacted or are planning to enact an open access policy. Only a 
handful of articles have been written in the last ten years by North American library 
practitioners on the topic of institutional open access policies, and these articles tend 
to either focus on a specific institution or on a single facet of open access policy imple-
mentation. In 2012, an Indiana University library and information science professor, 
along with a group of library science students, undertook a review of the language 
used in open access policies developed primarily by international organizations and 
the perceived effect of those policies on the repository deposit rate at those institu-
tions.7 This study was not limited to educational institutions, nor was it limited to 
policies affecting faculty scholarship. A large portion of its review concerns policies 
mandating deposit of theses and dissertations, which is a very different type of policy 
than the ones surveyed here. 

Three of the articles that were reviewed touch on many of the areas of this survey 
by detailing the process of policy promotion and adoption at three institutions where 
open access policies have been adopted. University of Kansas (KU) librarian Ada 
Emmett and her colleagues describe in detail the climate at KU prior to the proposal 
of an open access policy as well as the groups created and charged with drafting the 
policy and promoting it to faculty. The article also reflects upon the concerns raised 
by KU faculty and how the library and groups charged with policy promotion have 
addressed those concerns in their responses and workflows.8 Kevin Smith, Duke Uni-
versity’s Director of Scholarly Communications, similarly describes the environment 
at Duke University prior to the passage of its policy in 2010 and the process that was 
followed there to help ensure successful passage.9 Finally, Rice University librarian 
Shannon Kipphut-Smith reported on the methods of promoting an open access policy 
to faculty at Rice. Again, faculty concerns, similar to those explored in the survey here, 
were raised, and Kipphut-Smith shares how those concerns were addressed through 
outreach and service.10

Kipphut-Smith authored another article concerning open access policies, this time 
about how the Rice University library adopted a new workflow to collect and deposit 
faculty works in the institutional repository in compliance with the adopted open access 
policy.11 This article reinforces the importance of the library’s role in open access policy 
adoption, particularly in addressing the concern by faculty that deposit of articles in 
the institutional repository poses a significant burden on them. Similarly, Allegheny 
College librarian Brian Kern also wrote about his library’s role in advocating for an 
open access policy among faculty and also how that library implemented a workflow 
to direct faculty scholarship into its institutional repository.12 

While some of the major themes in the professional literature are also reflected in 
the survey underpinning this article, none of the existing literature encompasses the 



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  471

multi-institutional nature of this study. Analysis of the survey results offers a unique, 
cross-institutional perspective that greatly enhances the single-institution viewpoints 
typically found in articles on open access policies. It also further illuminates the aca-
demic library’s role in open access policymaking. The next section reviews the survey 
results, followed by an analysis of selected issues that were raised by the results.

Method
To capture these data, the authors devised a survey to collect information on the 
characteristics of institutions that have enacted, attempted to enact, or are consider-
ing open access policies, as well as the elements of these policies and the methods of 
promoting the policies, including faculty concerns and how those concerns have been 
addressed. The survey was designed in Qualtrics and included five sections of ques-
tions. The survey draft was reviewed and tested by open access policy experts who 
provided feedback on the survey design and content. In August 2014, the authors, 
via several listservs, requested North American institutions to respond to the survey. 
The responses from the fifty-one institutions that completed the survey reveal the key 
strategies employed in conceiving, promoting, and implementing open access policies 
and illustrate how libraries often play a key role in the policymaking process.13 

Two sections were answered by all respondents; these sections polled them on the 
demographics of their institutions and the status of open access policy development 
at the responding institution. Depending on the response to the question on policy 
status, respondents were directed to one of the three remaining sections. Each of these 
remaining sections contained questions tailored to the state of open access policy 
development at the time the survey was answered. There was a section for those that 
had passed a policy (“Enacted Policy Group”), those with a policy currently under 
consideration (“In Process Policy Group”), and those that had failed to pass a policy 
(“Failed Policy Group”). The questions in each section polled respondents on policy 
development methodology, waivers, embargoes, policy promotion, and their experi-
ence in receiving and responding to faculty concerns. 

Results
Demographics
Fifty-one educational institutions from the United States and Canada responded to the 
survey. A review of the demographics of the fifty-one institutions does not reveal many 
points of homogeny. The survey respondents represent institutions of all sizes and 
profiles that have successfully pursued open access of their faculty’s scholarship as a 
matter of policy. Of the responding institutions, 65 percent are public and 35 percent are 
private, with 16 respondents indicating that they were founded as land grant institutions. 

Survey data reveal that the institutions vary in the size of their faculty, their federal 
research budgets, and their degree offerings as well. More than 50 percent of the survey 
respondents indicated that their institution received more than $100 million in federal 
research funding, with 24 percent reporting that their institution received $500 million 
or more. The size of respondents’ faculty bodies also varied. The largest percentage of 
respondents (27%) indicated that their faculty size was greater than 3,000; however, 
25 percent of respondents had fewer than 500 faculty members. Further, while most of 
the respondents offer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, only about half offer 
professional degree programs. 

As part of the survey, respondents were asked about the governance model and 
faculty-administration relations at their campuses. Forty of the fifty-one respondents 
indicated that their faculty members were not covered by a collective bargaining 
agreement. The majority of the respondents (88%) participate in shared governance 



472  College & Research Libraries July 2016

at their campuses, with a similar percentage indicating that there was a library ad-
vising or consulting committee composed of faculty not affiliated with the library. 
However, perceptions varied as to how well this shared governance was working at 
individual campuses. The majority of the institutions with enacted policies reported 
a collaborative, collegial, and otherwise positive relationship between faculty and 
administration. The two responding institutions where a policy measure failed 
also indicated that relationships were positive. Several respondents indicated that 
their campus was at a time of transition, most typically due to a new president or 
chancellor. Other respondents indicated that relationships between faculty and 
administration were variable, with reports of “suspicion” existing within certain 
pockets of faculty or differences among individual schools or colleges within a 
single institution.

Open Access Policies
Policy Types
As aforementioned, survey respondents fall into three groups: Enacted Policy Group, 
In Process Policy Group, and Failed Policy Group. The status of policy development 
at responding institutions is indicated in the table below.

The survey offered respondents six 
different policy types to choose from to 
indicate the model that applies at each 
campus. There was also an option to 
select if a policy was a blend of differ-
ent models, with a comments section 
to describe the blended model. In the 
Enacted Policy Group, 50 percent chose 
the model that automatically grants to 
the institution a nonexclusive license to 
faculty research articles, requires deposit 
of articles (or the final accepted manu-
scripts) to an institutional repository, 
and allows for waivers or other opt-out 
options. This so-called Harvard model 
was also involved in approximately half 

of the blended policy types that accounted for 23 percent of the total responses of the 
Enacted Policy Group. The second most common policy type after the Harvard model 
was a general statement of encouragement to faculty to publish their future works 
through open access vehicles. 

Respondents in the In Process Group were spread evenly between the Harvard 
model, blended models, and statements of encouragement to disseminate articles 
through open access. In the Failed Policy group, both respondents had pursued a 
statement of encouragement to publish via open access. 

To Whom the Policy Applies
Open access policies vary in terms of application. Institutional-level policies cover all 
faculty members; however, some policies have alternatively been established at the 
department or college level. The survey results demonstrate that most respondents 
have pursued institutional policies covering all faculty authors. In the Enacted Policy 
Group, 73 percent had this type of policy in place, while 78 percent of the In Process 
Group were planning this kind of policy; and both schools in the Failed Policy Group 
had attempted to pass an institutional policy.

TABLE 1
Open Access Policy Status

Policy Status (by 
institution type)

Number of 
Institutions

Private Institutions
Enacted 17
In Process 1

Public Institutions
Enacted 23
In Process 8
Failed Policy 2



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  473

Among those institutions focused on department- or college-level policies, the 
library is typically the unit for which the policy is being developed. For respondents 
who have passed a department or college policy, 63 percent involved the library; and, 
within the In Process Group, 100 percent of the department- or college-level policies 
were directed at librarians. Examples of nonlibrary departments or schools with open 
access policies include College of Arts and Sciences, School of Public Health, Graduate 
School of Social Work, and School of Engineering.

TABLE 2
Open Access Policy Types

Policy Type Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)

Policy grants, without action by the 
author, the institution certain non-
exclusive rights (a pre-existing license) 
to future research articles published by 
faculty and offers a waiver or an opt-out 
for authors. The policy also requires 
deposit in the institutional repository.

19 2 0 41%

Policy requires faculty to negotiate with 
publishers to retain certain non-exclusive 
rights in their articles including the right 
to deposit their articles in the institutional 
repository.

1 1 0 .04%

Policy seeks no rights at all but requires 
faculty to deposit future articles in the 
institutional repository. Deposits will be 
available immediately upon deposit if 
institution has permission from author to 
make it available open access. Otherwise, 
deposit will be dark.

1 0 0 .02%

Policy seeks no rights at all and requires 
deposit in the institutional repository and 
open access availability only when the 
publisher permits it.

1 1 0 .04%

Policy is merely a statement of 
encouragement to publish future works 
open access.

5 2 2 14%

Policy does not require open access but 
asks faculty to “opt in” to the practice of 
self archiving and open access.

3 2 0 10%

If your policy is of a type not described 
here, or is a blend of two or more of 
these policy types, please detail the 
general conditions of the policy enacted 
at your institution.

9 2 0 22%



474  College & Research Libraries July 2016

Process Used to Establish the Policy
Whether a policy is at the institutional or department/college level, the method of ap-
proval nearly always involves a vote by the faculty. Eighty-eight percent of the respon-
dents within the Enacted Policy Group indicated that a vote was held in either the faculty 
senate (or comparable institutionwide faculty body) or within a department/college. The 
remaining 12 percent employed some combination of faculty vote and administrative 
action. Comparable numbers were found in the other respondent groups, with 67 percent 
of the In Process Group planning a faculty senate vote, and the remaining 33 percent 
pursuing a strategy using both faculty voting mechanisms and administrative actions. 
Both respondents in the Failed Policy Group held an unsuccessful faculty senate vote.

The faculty senate votes in the Enacted Policy group registered impressive margins. 
Fifty-four percent were unanimous, while an additional 35 percent were more than 90 
percent. Another 3 percent registered a solid majority of 60–90 percent, and 8 percent 
resulted in a slight majority outcome of 51–59 percent.

Waivers and Embargoes
Most policies (86 percent in the Enacted Policy Group and 67 percent in the In Process 
Group) include language that grants automatic waivers to a faculty author on request 
without justification or explanation. In the majority of policies at institutions surveyed, 
the waiver is granted on a per-article basis, rather than a blanket waiver for all of a faculty 
member’s articles. In some cases, the waiver applies to both the nonexclusive license and 
the requirement to deposit into the institutional repository, while in others it applies to the 
license only and faculty members are still expected to deposit all of their article manuscripts. 

Respondents were also asked if they observe publisher embargoes that seek to dictate 
when open access versions of articles can be made publicly available. Seventy percent 
of respondents in the Enacted Policy Group honor publisher embargoes in spite of the 
fact that most have nonexclusive license policies in place that should supersede any 
publisher-imposed restrictions. In this same group, 10 percent do not observe publisher 
embargoes and 20 percent do in some cases, mostly at the request of authors. Within 
the In Process Group, the responses on honoring publisher embargoes were 56 percent 
yes, 11 percent no, and 33 percent undecided.

Policy Origination and Promotion
Who Conceived and Promoted the Policy
The survey asked participants to describe how the idea of an open access policy arose 
and who first raised the concept. In all three respondent groups, the vast majority of 
open access policies were initiated by the institutions’ libraries. The individuals within 
the library who conceived the policy varied, with responses naming the library dean/
director, scholarly communication librarian, scholarly communication committee, and 
other librarians as key figures. In some cases of institutionwide policies, the idea was 
initially raised by people outside the library, such as the Vice President for Research, 
“activist faculty” in various departments, or a committee appointed by the Provost. 
Although the library typically played a lead role in initiating open access policies, 
respondents indicated that they often worked in conjunction with other bodies con-
nected to faculty senate, especially the senate’s library committee. 

Partnerships between academic libraries and faculty outside the library were also 
identified as a critical component of promoting the institutional policies across campus 
in advance of faculty votes. In all three respondent groups, the most common approach 
articulated by respondents was to assign responsibility for managing the promotion 
process to either the faculty senate library committee or a committee specifically formed 
to promote the policy. In some cases, the Provost’s office or the Office of Research was 
directly involved in policy promotion. 



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  475

TABLE 3
Reasons Offered in Conversations with Faculty on Why Open Access is Important

Reason  Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)
Open access enables authors to retain more 
of their rights in their own work rather than 
assigning all rights to the publishers.

34 7 1 82%

Open access is a means of addressing the pricing 
crisis in subscription scholarly journals and 
combating the monopoly that a few publishers 
have on the dissemination of scholarship.

24 3 2 57%

Open access promotes access to research by 
anyone. It allows more people to benefit from 
scholarship, including the general public who may 
have an interest in or need for scholarly research.

36 8 1 88%

Open access allows faculty to not only be better 
researchers but also better educators. When 
professors can’t access the most recent research, 
they are deprived of the opportunity to bring 
that material into the classroom. With science 
advancing at an ever-increasing pace, it’s crucial 
that professors have access to cutting-edge 
research, so students’ education is not outdated 
before they even finish a course.

15 2 1 35%

Open access facilitates collaboration on 
new research. With access barriers removed, 
scientists and other researchers can share 
scholarship across borders and work together 
more efficiently to bring forth new ideas.

23 5 0 55%

Open access supports public access. A large 
body of scholarship is funded through public tax 
dollars, and the public should be allowed free 
and unburdened access to the research they help 
support.

34 9 0 86%

Scholarly research can be made open access 
through deposit in open access repositories 
(green OA) or through publication in open 
access journals (gold OA). Publication of 
scholarly research in gold OA journals does not 
signify that the research is of lesser quality. Gold 
OA scholarly literature is not lesser quality than 
traditionally published scholarship. Much of the 
open access literature published via gold OA is 
subject to the same or more rigorous peer review 
as traditional toll access journals.

25 7 0 63%

Open access supports the institution’s land grant 
mission.

5 3 0 16%

Open access supports the institution’s education 
and/or research mission.

34 5 1 78%



476  College & Research Libraries July 2016

Rationales for Open Access
When promoting an open access policy to faculty, proponents articulate the values and 
benefits of open access. The survey results confirmed this as respondents were asked 
to identify which arguments they employed to convey the importance of open access. 
Choosing among a list of twelve options, most chose more than one reason to reflect 
a multipronged approach to the issue. The most frequently selected rationales in the 
Enacted Policy and In Process groups were: 

• Open access enables authors to retain more of their rights in their own work 
rather than assigning all rights to the publishers. 

• Open access promotes access to research by anyone. It allows more people to 
benefit from scholarship, including the general public who may have an interest 
in or need for scholarly research.

• Open access supports public access. A large body of scholarship is funded 
through public tax dollars, and the public should be allowed free and unbur-
dened access to the research they help support.

There were substantial differences in how frequently the following reasons were 
selected by these two groups of respondents:

• Open access is a means of addressing the pricing crisis in subscription scholarly 
journals and combating the monopoly that a few publishers have on the dis-
semination of scholarship. (This reason was chosen by 65 percent of the Enacted 
Policy Group versus 33 percent of the In Process Group.)

• Open access supports the institution’s education and/or research mission. (This 
reason was chosen by 90 percent of the Enacted Policy Group versus 56 percent 
of the In Process Group.)

• Open access to research outputs is becoming a standard requirement at many 
funding agencies. (This reason was chosen by 55 percent of the Enacted Policy 
Group versus 89 percent of the In Process Group.)

Time Spent on Policy Promotion
Survey participants were asked how much time was spent educating faculty about 
open access and the policy before it was presented for formal adoption. Among the 
three respondent groups, there was a strong tendency to indicate a timeframe of either 
six to twelve months, or one to two years. 

TABLE 3
Reasons Offered in Conversations with Faculty on Why Open Access is Important

Reason  Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)
Open access enables access to research by 
scholars at institutions that cannot afford access 
to the subscription-based journals in which the 
articles are published, especially those in non-
Western countries.

27 6 1 66%

Open access to research outputs is becoming a 
standard requirement at many funding agencies.

20 8 0 55%

Other (Please detail below.) 16 1 0 33%
We didn't discuss with faculty and other 
constituents the importance of open access.

0 1 0 .01%



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  477

Methods of Promotion
Methods of promotion were similar across the three groups. Institutions in both the 
Enacted Policy Group and the In Process Group as well as both institutions in the Failed 
Policy Group reported that they did not rely upon any external resources when promot-
ing an open access policy at their campus. For those that did rely upon external resources, 
several institutions relied on the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition 
(SPARC). Several also referred to materials available on the websites of other institutions 
that had enacted open access policies. Among the Enacted Policy Group, the people 
and resources at open access policy groundbreaker Harvard University were popular. 
A few respondents indicated that they had either in-person visits or consultations from 
Harvard open access proponents Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber. Institutions within the 
Enacted Policy Group also reported referring to materials put out by Harvard’s Office 
of Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Open Access Project.

In addition to external resources, institutions in both the Enacted Policy Group 
and the In Process policy Group identified a variety of internally created resources 
to assist in their open access policy promotions. The most common internally based 
methods include:

• Websites, including LibGuides
• Brochures
• In-person meetings with faculty, including open forums, brown bag sessions, 

and departmental visits
• Targeted e-mails
• Articles in library and other campus newsletters
• Open Access Week programming on campus

Faculty Concerns
In the midst of the promotion of a policy, faculty affected by its terms often raise 
concerns about the perceived impact the policy will have on such issues as author 
choice in the journal of publication, academic freedom, rights retention, and publisher 
relations. The survey articulated these and several other concerns that are frequently 
raised by faculty and asked respondents to indicate which ones they had observed at 
their institutions. Below is a table summarizing the concerns that are most commonly 
raised by faculty about open access policies according to respondent observations at 
their institutions. The table indicates the percentage of those in each policy status group 
that indicated this concern had been expressed by affected faculty at their institutions.

The survey also asked respondents how they addressed the concerns expressed by 
faculty about an open access policy. In the survey, respondents were provided a list 
of potential responses they could give to faculty in reply to these concerns. The table 
below lists the responses to faculty concerns and the percentage of respondents who 
included these messages in their communications with faculty. 

TABLE 4
Time Spent Educating Faculty on Open Access and the Policy

Amount of Time Policy Enacted Policy in Progress Policy Failed
Less than six months 15% 0% 50%
Six to twelve months 33% 44& 50%
One to two years 31% 44% 0%
More than two years 21% 12% 0%



478  College & Research Libraries July 2016

TABLE 5
Faculty Concerns about Open Access Policies

Faculty Concern Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)
Complying with the policy will create 
a burden on faculty

30 7 1 75%

Concern that control of copyright 
being transferred to institution and that 
deposit in IR permits unauthorized use 
of works by others

28 5 0 65%

Belief that publishers will refuse work if 
author subject to an open access policy

26 6 1 65%

Belief that a mandatory policy is an 
act of institutional control or coercion

21 6 1 55%

Confusion about what types of works 
the policy applies to

23 3 1 53%

Belief that open access will hurt 
scholarly societies

19 5 1 49%

Belief that policy requires publication 
in open access journals

16 4 1 41%

Belief that open access infringes upon 
academic freedom

18 2 0 39%

Confusion of place of publication vs. 
requirement of deposit in the IR

13 2 0 29%

Requirement of multiple deposits where 
funder policy also requires deposit of 
work in an open access repository.

8 4 0 24%

TABLE 6
Library Responses to Faculty Concerns about Open Access Policies

Response to Faculty Concerns  Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)
No requirement to publish in an open 
access journal; article may be published 
in any scholarly journal

30 5 1 71%

Outline many benefits of depositing 
works in an institution repository

31 5 1 71%

Deposit assistance available 30 4 1 67%
Clarification that the final version of 
the peer reviewed manuscript, not the 
published version, should be deposited

27 5 1 65%

Copyright ownership is not transferred 
to the institution; rather, authors retain 
copyright and grant the institution a 
nonexclusive license

26 6 1 65%



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  479

Discussion
Institutional Demographics
Institutions considering or in the process of gathering support for an open access policy 
should be encouraged by the demographic data collected from respondents. The survey 
data shows institutions with and without a medical school, with varying faculty body 
sizes, and with variable federal research budgets have successfully pursued open access. 
For example, institutions with less than 250 and more than 3,000 faculty members have 
passed policies. In terms of annual federal grant funding, policies have been established at 
institutions with less than $1 million and more than $500 million. Having positive faculty-
administration relations and a system of shared governance in place appears to be helpful, 
although certainly not detrimental if absent. The presence of negative or mixed relations 
between faculty and administration may simply necessitate more work on the part of ad-
vocates to overcome concerns or misunderstandings regarding open access policymaking.

Policy Types
With respect to the policy types that institutions have pursued, the data indicate a 
tendency to gravitate toward two very different policy types: a Harvard style policy 
that automatically grants a nonexclusive license and a related expectation of deposit 
in an institutional repository; or a policy statement that encourages faculty to make 
their scholarship accessible through open access. In some ways, these two approaches 
represent ends of a spectrum. While the Harvard style model lacks compliance mecha-
nisms, it is an institutional policy that specifically articulates what faculty members are 
“required” to do, while statements of encouragement have less policylike features and 
explicit expectations. Also, in the Harvard model, the entire faculty is automatically 
covered by the policy; individuals must opt out if they do not want to participate, 
while statements of encouragement are based on a general opt-in approach. 

TABLE 6
Library Responses to Faculty Concerns about Open Access Policies

Response to Faculty Concerns  Policy 
Enacted

Policy in 
Progress

Policy 
Failed

Percentage 
of Total 

Responses (%)
Clarification that the policy only applies 
to scholarly articles published after 
policy’s effective date

27 5 0 63%

Waiver available if publisher refuses to 
publish on account of policy

25 4 0 57%

Waivers are available without proof or 
justification of need

24 3 0 53%

Faculty members may elect an embargo 
upon availability of their deposited works

21 3 0 47%

If work has been deposited in a funder 
mandated repository, it will be harvested 
by institution

12 3 1 31%

Library will track publication of articles 
and request manuscripts from faculty for 
deposit

11 1 0 24%

Faculty members have responsibility to 
deposit their works

7 2 0 18%



480  College & Research Libraries July 2016

For those institutions seeking a more formal and prescriptive policy, the Harvard 
model is the standard that most respondents chose to employ. This is likely driven in 
part by the extensive guidelines created at Harvard for best practices in open access 
policy development. These guidelines have been employed by a number of institu-
tions to create Harvard-style policies, and the collective momentum created by this 
ongoing sequence of adoptions has presumably enabled the Harvard approach to gain 
widespread traction as well. 

Besides policy type, policy coverage is another consideration for institutions. The 
rationale behind most of the survey respondents who chose an institutionwide policy 
may be based on two factors: a policy that covers all faculty has the potential for mak-
ing a larger amount of scholarship accessible via open access than departmental or 
college level policies; and there has been a ripple effect of institutional policies being 
successfully implemented at universities such as MIT, Duke, and the University of 
Kansas that are held up as models for emulation within the open access community. 
While the process for passing such policies at the institutional level may be more 
challenging from the logistical and political perspectives, most schools appear to be 
taking this route to facilitate the widest dissemination of their faculties’ scholarship.

Passing policies at the departmental or college level, however, can set the stage for 
eventual passage of an institutionwide policy. For example, open access policies at 
Oregon State University were passed independently by the faculties of the University 
Libraries, College of Forestry, and College of Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences in the 
years preceding passage of a universitywide policy by the faculty senate. Institutional 
and department/college policies are not mutually exclusive; they may be part of a larger 
progression within a university.

Policy Waivers and Embargoes 
The survey results demonstrate that the standard approach for establishing open ac-
cess policies at universities and colleges is for faculty members to pass these policies 
for themselves. This fact has significance on multiple levels. It suggests that faculty 
members who voted at the Enacted Policy institutions widely recognize the value of 
open access with regard to their scholarship. As more institutions pass Harvard-style 
open access policies in particular, they reflect a growing culture of open access in which 
faculty members formally establish expectations for article manuscript deposit as part-
and-parcel of publishing research at their respective institutions. In the process, most 
existing institutional open access policies seek to balance these expectations with faculty 
freedom to choose their level of participation via waivers or embargoes. As the open 
access policy landscape matures over time, it will be important to monitor if waivers 
and embargoes were necessary concessions to faculty choice in the early phases of 
passing open access policies that will ultimately fade away in light of a stronger com-
mitment in academia to open access as the default setting for scholarly communication.

Since the dominant Harvard-style policy is based on the deposit of faculty articles 
into an institutional repository, it seems open access policies are pursued largely 
to increase the number of articles that are made openly accessible via institutional 
repositories. However, in policies that grant a nonexclusive license to the institution, 
it is standard practice to allow faculty members to request and automatically receive 
waivers from the policy. The issue of waivers has stimulated extensive debate in the 
open access community. Some view the waivers as essential for respecting academic 
freedom and enabling policies to be passed by faculty bodies, while others consider 
waivers a feature that significantly dilutes the power of open access policies. 

For example, in his book Open Access, Peter Suber observes, “We could say that 
rights-retention policies require OA except when authors opt out, or that they simply 



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  481

shift the default to OA. Those are two ways of saying the same thing because, either 
way, faculty remain free to decide for or against OA for each of their publications. 
Preserving this freedom and making it conspicuous help muster faculty support, 
indeed, unanimous faculty votes.”14 Open access advocate Michael Eisen counters 
this perspective in reference to the University of California system open access policy: 
“This policy has a major, major hole—an optional faculty opt-out. This is there because 
enough faculty wanted the right to publish their works in ways that were incompatible 
with the policy that the policy would not have passed without the provision. Unfor-
tunately, this means that the policy is completely toothless. It provides a ready means 
for people to make their works available—which is great. And having the default be 
open is great. But nobody is compelled to do it in any meaningful way—therefore it is 
little more than a voluntary system.” In the same blog post, Eisen goes on to note that 
some major publishers are now requiring authors from institutions with open access 
policies to get a waiver to publish in their journals.15 

The challenge of writing and implementing open access policies in ways that address 
the interests of institutions, faculty authors, and publishers is also illustrated in the 
issue of publisher embargoes. In response to authors’ interest in depositing their work 
into repositories, and the growing number of open access policies at the institutions 
that employ researchers and from the funding agencies that underwrite research, many 
publishers have developed embargo policies that seek to limit when the open access 
versions can be made publicly accessible. These embargoes generally range from six 
to twenty-four months after the date of publication. Publisher embargoes should not 
be confused with the rights of faculty authors to self-embargo their articles within an 
institutional repository, which is allowed by the policies in a majority of the Enacted 
Policy and In Process groups. It should be noted that observation of publisher embar-
goes is rarely articulated in the language of an open access policy. The decision to honor 
these embargoes is typically an element of the implementation of the policy, which is 
usually led by the library as manager of the institutional repository. 

Policy Promotion
Libraries assume a lead role in initiating open access policies but often assume a more 
supporting but still important role in promoting the policy and educating faculty col-
leagues on open access. Survey data indicate multiple promotion and communications 
strategies that should be considered when pursuing enactment of an open access policy. 
In offering various rationales to faculty for the importance of open access, there was a 
divergence among the respondent groups on the issues of the journal pricing crisis and 
open access requirements by funding agencies, with the Enacted Group focusing more 
on the former than the latter, and the opposite being true for the In Process Group. This 
reflects an evolution in the open access landscape. While the price of scholarly journals 
remains a major problem for academic institutions, explanations of the benefits of open 
access seem to currently focus less on the issue of combating journal subscription costs 
and more on the collective impact of scholarship being disseminated through various 
open methods. The trend of increasing open access requirements from funding agen-
cies is reflected in the emphasis placed on this issue by the In Process Group, and that 
argument will likely increase in relevance over time as more agencies establish open 
access requirements.

Another interesting dichotomy that arose in the responses to questions on policy 
promotion was the popularity of panels, forums, brochures, and the like as promo-
tional tools; yet skepticism was also voiced by respondents as to their effectiveness. 
One respondent commented that the “endless discussions and debate, panels, forums, 
brochures, [and] web sites” did not matter because the proponents were on board and 



482  College & Research Libraries July 2016

the minds of the detractors could not be changed. Another comment expressed that 
the website and other printed information were not “key to the OA policy process.” 
Rather, “face to face meetings were the heart and soul of the process.” Yet another 
comment shared that active promotion was not necessary for passage of a policy at that 
institution, indicating that the policy passed “with very little promotion or education 
of faculty.” Finally, some respondents from the Enacted Policy Group indicated that 
open forums were poorly attended.

The most effective method of promotion among respondents involved engagement 
with governance groups. Numerous institutions in both the Enacted Policy and the 
In Process groups described promotion efforts that heavily involved presentations 
and other engagement with faculty senates, academic councils, and other governance 
bodies. The following comments were shared by respondents about the importance 
of governance engagement:

• “We met with as many campus governance groups as would agree to hear us 
out.”

• “Communication happened primarily within the faculty senate.”
• “Presentations to the faculty senate and faculty senate executive committee…

began the process.”
• “The task force got on the agenda of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. 

The task force proposed that the Executive Committee consider putting an 
open access policy on the faculty senate agenda. The Executive Committee 
suggested a timeline and course of action for writing a policy and getting it 
in front of faculty…. A draft of the policy was made available on the faculty 
senate web page and faculty senators were asked to review it and take it back 
to their units for discussion.”

Faculty Concerns and Responses
During policy promotion, respondents observed several common concerns raised by 
faculty. The most frequent concerns pertained to the presumed burden placed upon 
faculty to comply with the policy and a perception of institutional coercion or control 
via the policy. The perception of burden can be alleviated through both education 
and library services to support the deposit of faculty articles. Proponents of a policy 
as well as those involved with managing the institution’s repository should make it 
clear how simple the steps are for depositing works. The benefits of a nonexclusive 
license as granted to institutions in rights retention or Harvard-style policies should 
also be emphasized. 

Respondents are addressing the perception of burden with offers of deposit as-
sistance and reducing duplication of effort through harvesting articles from existing 
repositories when possible. Given the frequency with which faculty express concern that 
complying with an open access policy will pose a burden, it is important that libraries 
and others charged with managing the repository and administering implementation 
of a policy give sufficient thought to how deposit will be structured and supported 
in advance of promoting a policy. Having an article identification and submission 
workflow in place can help assuage faculty fears.

Faculty perception of institutional coercion and control may best be addressed 
through the language of the policy itself. This often stems from the use of the word 
“mandate” or “mandatory,” despite the complete lack of enforcement mechanisms to 
ensure faculty compliance. Suber addresses this issue in his book Open Access, stat-
ing: “Unfortunately, we don’t have a good vocabulary for policies that use mandatory 
language while deferring to third-person dissents or first-person opt-outs.…The word 
“mandate” is not a very good fit for policies like this, but neither is any other English 



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  483

word.” Further, a policy that is a faculty-led initiative approved by a governing body 
or that involves faculty from across disciplines can help with combating the perception 
of institutional coercion. Other vocalized concerns by faculty are best addressed in the 
promotional messages and education being done by open access policy proponents. 
Messages of reassurance about retention of copyright, choice of publication venue, 
and the availability of waivers demonstrate respect for the needs and rights of faculty 
authors and an absence of institutional coercion and control. 

Keys to Success
The best guidance for open access policy development may come in the form of direct 
advice from those who have enacted such policies. Respondents in the Enacted Policy 
Group were asked an additional question in the survey: “What do you believe were 
the keys to success to the passage of the open access policy?” This question did not 
have any preset answers; instead, it offered respondents the opportunity to describe 
in their own words what they believed to be the keys to success at their institutions. 
Common themes emerged from their replies, some of which echo results from other 
questions in the survey: 

Libraries often propose the initial concept of an open access policy and are instru-
mental supporters of them, but they also need nonlibrary faculty to assume lead roles 
in promoting the policies. Faculty buy-in is more likely to result from peer-to-peer 
advocacy for the policy than from library exhortations. Within this context, the involve-
ment of widely respected faculty advocates who work in tandem with the library on 
policy development and promotion was deemed essential for success.

As supporters of open access policy development and promotion, librarians 
must be able to succinctly articulate the policy’s benefits, confidently address any 
questions raised by faculty, and engage in nuanced discussion about the policy and 
its ramifications. While it is important to have nonlibrary faculty leading much of 
the promotion process, librarians typically have deeper expertise on open access 
issues and policy details so they must be prepared to serve as resident experts in 
campus discussions. Associated with this role is the shared view that an empathic 
approach to addressing faculty concerns was essential for guiding the dialogue 
toward a positive outcome.

Libraries should develop a policy implementation strategy in advance of policy 
promotion to assure faculty that the policy will not create an unreasonable burden 
on them. There is a sense that, while many faculty members may support the general 
principle of open access, they will not approve a policy if they believe it will create 
too much additional work for them. Libraries are skilled at designing effective imple-
mentation strategies and must convincingly communicate these plans to inform the 
cost-benefit analysis that many faculty members will undertake to determine their 
individual level of support for the policy.

The open access policies passed thus far appear to universally lack any enforcement 
mechanisms, and multiple respondents noted this as a key to the policies’ passage 
by faculty. There is a commonly held view that faculty are more likely to support an 
open access policy if it does not contain any form of coercion that would ensure their 
compliance. This relates to another frequent observation in the survey responses that 
it is important for the policy to be viewed as “nonthreatening” to faculty. While that 
approach may help to ensure policy passage, it also raises questions of how this may 
limit a policy’s impact, if there should be formal enforcement mechanisms, and what 
those might entail. 

The keys to success articulated in the survey results offer sound guidance for those 
considering open access policies, and they also raise issues that merit further research. 



484  College & Research Libraries July 2016

The question of how to best ensure comprehensive faculty compliance across campus 
seems to be an area that is especially relevant for future studies.

Conclusion
As more educational institutions establish open access policies, there is a corresponding 
need to assess how these policies are created as well as their individual and collective 
impact on improving access to faculty scholarship. This article tackled the first issue 
by analyzing the results of a survey of fifty-one North American institutions that have 
pursued open access policies. In capturing the policy development and promotion 
experiences of a broad range of institutions, this study lays a foundation on which 
subsequent examination of the impact of these policies can be developed. While the 
academic library community seems to generally accept open access policies as a “good 
thing,” there is a critical need to measure the tangible impact of institutional policies 
to determine their true value.

In the meantime, institutions continue to pursue open access policies as evidenced 
by regular announcements of new policies being passed at a variety of universities 
and colleges. In this environment, cross-institutional studies will take on even greater 
importance to document their collective ramifications for scholarly communication. 
Just as they have been leaders in conceiving and advocating for institutional open 
access policies, academic libraries are well positioned to carry out further research on 
the policies as they mature over time. 



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  485

Appendix. Open Access Policy Formation Survey
This survey should be answered by the person who is most familiar with the open access 
policy drafting and/or adoption process at your institution. It may or may not be someone 
affiliated with your institution’s library. North American institutions who have adopted, 
who are in the process of drafting, or who have attempted and failed to adopt an open 
access policy at the institutional, college, or departmental level should respond to this 
survey. By “open access policy,” we include all policy types, including deposit mandates, 
rights retention policies, “opt-in” policies, and statements of encouragement or support 
of open access. Through your responses, we will analyze how open access policies have 
been developed and promoted across academic institutions in North America, as well 
as the factors that may have influenced the adoption or rejection of particular types of 
open access policies. This study will further document the institutional open access policy 
movement in North America. We plan to share our findings widely through groups such 
as the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) as well as through conference 
presentations and a journal article. We believe the results of the survey will be especially 
helpful to institutions that plan to develop open access policies in the future. Your survey 
response is essential to the success of this project and its potential impact. The survey will 
take approximately 30 minutes to complete and should be completed by September 19, 
2014. This survey is composed primarily of multiple-choice and a few short-answer ques-
tions. You have the option of identifying yourself and your institution by name but such 
identification is not required. The survey was designed by Christine Fruin, Scholarly Com-
munications Librarian at the University of Florida, with Shan Sutton, Associate University 
Librarian for Research and Scholarly Communication at Oregon State University. Any 
questions about completing the survey should be directed to Christine Fruin. Thank you.

1.1 What is the name of your institution? (Optional) 

1.2 If you are willing to be contacted for a follow-up interview, please provide your 
contact information below:

Name ______________________________________________________________
E-mail ______________________________________________________________
Telephone __________________________________________________________

1.3 Is your institution public or private?
 � Public
 � Private

1.4 Is your institution a land-grant college or university? (A land-grant college or uni-
versity is an institution that has been designated by its state legislature or Congress 
to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.)

 � Yes
 � No

1.5 What degrees does your institution offer? Choose all that apply.
 � Bachelors
 � Masters
 � Doctorate (PhD or equivalent)
 � Medicine (MD or equivalent)
 � Law (JD or equivalent)
 � Dentistry (DDS or equivalent)
 � Veterinary Medicine (DVM or equivalent)



486  College & Research Libraries July 2016

1.6 How many full-time faculty are employed by your institution?
 � 100 or fewer
 � 101–249
 � 250–499
 � 500–749
 � 750–999
 � 1,000–1,499
 � 1,500–1,999
 � 2,000–2,499
 � 2,500–2,999
 � 3,000 or more

1.7 Are your institution’s faculty members covered by a collective bargaining agreement?
 � Yes
 � No

1.8 Does your institution participate in shared governance?
 � Yes
 � No

1.9 How would you characterize the relationship between your institution’s adminis-
tration and its faculty?

1.10 Does your institution have a Library Committee composed of faculty members 
outside the library that provides advice and guidance on library issues?

 � Yes
 � No

1.11 What is the average annual amount of federal grant funding for academic research 
received by faculty at your institution?

 � Less than $250,000
 � $250,000 to $500,000
 � $500,000 to $1,000,000
 � $1 million to $5 million
 � $5 million to $10 million
 � $10 million to $50 million
 � $50 million to $100 million
 � $100 million to $250 million
 � $250 million to $500 million
 � More than $500 million
 � Unknown

1.12 Is your institution a signatory to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowl-
edge in the Sciences and Humanities?

 � Yes
 � No

2.1 Does your institution currently have an enacted open access policy at the univer-
sity, individual college or department level? Please answer yes if there is currently an 
enacted policy, regardless of policy type.

 � Yes (You will be taken to Section 3 of the survey.)
 � No



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  487

2.2 If no, what is the current status of open access policy adoption at your institution?
 � We are currently in the process of drafting an open access policy and are gathering 

input from campus constituents on how the policy should be drafted. (You will 
be taken to Section 4 of the survey.)

 � We have an open access policy draft and are gathering support from campus 
constituents for the policy as drafted. (You will be taken to Section 4 of the 
survey.)

 � We have attempted to pass an open access policy but the initiative failed. (You 
will be taken to Section 5 of the survey.)

3.1 Who does your open access policy apply to?
 � All faculty
 � Only select colleges or departments

3.2 What colleges or departments does your institution’s open access policy apply to? 
Check all that apply.

 � College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
 � College of Medicine
 � College of Public Health
 � Libraries
 � Other(s) (please list) ____________________

3.3 Through what process was the open access policy enacted?
 � Faculty senate (or equivalent) vote
 � Administrative action
 � College or departmental vote
 � Other (please explain) ____________________

3.4 What type of open access policy was adopted at your institution? (Definitions 
from “Good Practices for University Open-Access Policies” edited by Stuart Shieber 
and Peter Suber.)

 � Policy grants, without action by the author, the institution certain nonexclusive 
rights (a pre-existing license) to future research articles published by faculty and 
offers a waiver or an opt-out for authors. The policy also requires deposit in the 
institutional repository.

 � Policy requires faculty to negotiate with publishers to retain certain nonexclusive 
rights in their articles including the right to deposit their articles in the institu-
tional repository.

 � Policy seeks no rights at all but requires faculty to deposit future articles in the 
institutional repository. Deposits will be available immediately upon deposit if 
institution has permission from author to make it available open access. Otherwise, 
deposit will be dark.

 � Policy seeks no rights at all and requires deposit in the institutional repository 
and open access availability only when the publisher permits it.

 � Policy is merely a statement of encouragement to publish future works open access.
 � Policy does not require open access but asks faculty to “opt in” to the practice of 

self-archiving and open access.
 � If your policy is of a type not described here, or is a blend of two or more of these 

policy types, please detail below the general conditions of the policy enacted at 
your institution: ____________________



488  College & Research Libraries July 2016

3.5 If your policy includes a waiver, please select the conditions that apply:
 � Waiver may be obtained or is granted without proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver requests approved with proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver only applies to the license or permission granted to the institution, not to 

the deposit in the repository.
 � Waiver applies to both the license or permission granted to the institution and 

the deposit requirement.
 � Waiver only applies to a single article.
 � Waiver applies to all articles by the author.

3.6 Does your policy allow authors to delay open availability of the article after it is 
deposited (embargo)?

 � Yes
 � No

3.7 Are publisher embargoes on public access to deposited manuscripts observed?
 � Yes
 � No
 � In some cases (please explain) ____________________

3.8 Please describe how the idea of an open access policy arose at your institution. 
Please include who or what body first raised the idea of adopting an open access 
policy.

3.9 Who had responsibility for promoting the open access policy and growing consensus 
for its support before it was formally adopted? Names are not necessary, but titles or 
departmental affiliations would be useful.

3.10 What, if any, external supports or resources were used in promoting an open 
access policy at your institution? (some examples: publications, outside consultants)

3.11 Please describe the process employed for promoting and growing consensus for 
support of an open access policy at your institution. Include examples of what types 
of communication or promotional materials were used (some examples: open forums, 
panels, brochures, websites).

3.12 How much time was spent on educating faculty and other constituents about 
open access and the impact of an open access policy before the policy was presented 
for formal adoption?

 � Less than 6 months
 � 6–12 months
 � 1–2 years
 � More than 2 years

3.13 Prior to passing an open access policy, was there an active program soliciting 
faculty members to deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscripts of their published 
articles into the institutional repository?

 � Yes
 � No



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  489

3.14 If yes, did the rate of faculty deposits increase after the passage of the open ac-
cess policy?

 � Yes
 � No

3.15 What reasons were offered in conversations with faculty and other constituents 
about why open access is important? Check all that apply.

 � Open access enables authors to retain more of their rights in their own work rather 
than assigning all rights to the publishers.

 � Open access is a means of addressing the pricing crisis in subscription scholarly 
journals and combating the monopoly that a few publishers have on the dissemi-
nation of scholarship.

 � Open access promotes access to research by anyone. It allows more people to 
benefit from scholarship (including the general public, who may have an interest 
in or need for scholarly research).

 � Open access allows faculty to not only be better researchers but also better educa-
tors. When professors can’t access the most recent research, they are deprived of 
the opportunity to bring that material into the classroom. With science advancing 
at an ever-increasing pace, it’s crucial that professors have access to cutting-edge 
research, so students’ education is not outdated before they even finish a course.

 � Open access facilitates collaboration on new research. With access barriers re-
moved, scientists and other researchers can share scholarship across borders and 
work together more efficiently to bring forth new ideas.

 � Open access supports public access. A large body of scholarship is funded through 
public tax dollars, and the public should be allowed free and unburdened access 
to the research they help support.

 � Scholarly research can be made open access through deposit in open access reposi-
tories (green OA) or through publication in open access journals (gold OA). Publica-
tion of scholarly research in gold OA journals does not signify that the research is 
of lesser quality. Gold OA scholarly literature is not lesser quality than traditionally 
published scholarship. Much of the open access literature published via gold OA is 
subject to the same or more rigorous peer review as traditional toll access journals.

 � Open access supports the institution’s land-grant mission.
 � Open access supports the institution’s education and/or research mission.
 � Open access enables access to research by scholars at institutions that cannot af-

ford access to the subscription-based journals in which the articles are published, 
especially those in non-Western countries.

 � Open access to research outputs is becoming a standard requirement at many 
funding agencies.

 � Other (Please detail below.) ____________________
 � We didn’t discuss with faculty and other constituents the importance of open access.

3.16 What concerns or questions were most frequently raised by faculty and others 
before the open access policy was formally adopted? Check all that apply.

 � Requirement of multiple deposits where funder policy also requires deposit of a 
work in an open access repository.

 � Complying with the policy will create a burden on faculty in terms of work 
involved in depositing articles in institutional repository or requesting waivers.

 � Questions about copyright ownership under policy, including concern that greater 
control being transferred to institution and that deposit in institutional repository 
permits unauthorized use of works by others.



490  College & Research Libraries July 2016

 � Confusion as to what types of publications the policy applies, including questions 
about what is meant by “scholarly journal articles.”

 � Belief that policy requires publication in open access journals only.
 � Confusion about difference between “gold OA” and “green OA” and difference 

between place of publication versus requirement of deposit.
 � Publishers will refuse to publish their work if they are subject to an open access policy.
 � Open access policy infringes upon academic freedom.
 � If policy framed as a mandate, fear of institutional control or coercion.
 � Open access will hurt scholarly societies.
 � Other questions or concerns raised (please list) ____________________

3.17 What responses were given in reply to questions or concerns raised by faculty and 
others about the adoption of an open access policy at your institution? Check all that apply.

 � The version of the article to be deposited in the institutional repository is the final 
version of the peer-reviewed manuscript. The published version should not be 
deposited unless expressly allowed by the publisher but a link to the published 
version should be provided when a manuscript is deposited.

 � The policy does not require publication in any particular type of journal; publica-
tion in any journal is acceptable as long as the final peer-reviewed version of the 
article is deposited in the institutional repository.

 � If a publisher refuses to publish an article because of the policy, a waiver is readily 
available to the faculty member.

 � Waivers are available without proof or justification of need.
 � Copyright ownership of a faculty member’s work is not being transferred to the 

institution; rather, the institution is merely given a nonexclusive license. Under 
the policy, authors retain more rights to and control over their work than through 
standard publishing agreements.

 � The policy only applies to scholarly journal articles published after the enactment 
of the policy and does not apply to creative works, monographs, or other royalty-
generating works.

 � Assistance is available for deposit of article manuscripts in the institutional re-
pository.

 � Faculty members have responsibility for depositing their own article manuscripts 
in the institutional repository.

 � If the article has been deposited in another open access repository (such as PubMed 
Central), the institution will harvest that copy for deposit in the institutional 
repository.

 � Faculty members may specify an embargo period (delay the visibility of their 
works in the institutional repository).

 � The benefits of depositing works in the institutional repository include inclusion 
in search engine indexing leads to greater discoverability of works, greater expo-
sure to researchers and readers who can access the openly and freely available 
content, interoperability with other repositories, and permanent safe archive for 
scholarly works.

 � The library will track the publication of articles by faculty and request the final 
peer-reviewed manuscripts from faculty.

 � Other (Please detail below.) ____________________

3.18 If a faculty vote was taken to adopt an open access policy, how close was the vote?
 � Unanimous in support
 � Large majority of votes in support (more than 90% of votes cast)



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  491

 � A majority of votes in support (between 60%–90% of votes cast)
 � A slight majority of votes in support (between 51%–59% of votes cast)

3.19 Does your institution have a fund supporting publication in open access journals?
 � Yes
 � No

3.20 What do you believe were the keys to success to the passage of the open access 
policy?

4.1 To whom will the proposed open access policy apply?
 � All faculty
 � Only select colleges or departments

4.2 What colleges or departments will the proposed open access policy apply to? 
Choose all that apply.

 � College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
 � College of Medicine
 � College of Public Health
 � Libraries
 � Other(s) (please list) ____________________

4.3 Please describe how the idea of an open access policy arose at your institution. 
Please include who or what body first raised the idea of adopting an open access policy.

4.4 Who has responsibility for promoting an open access policy and growing consensus 
for its support at your institution? Names are not necessary, but titles or department 
affiliations would be helpful.

4.5 What, if any, external supports or resources are being used in promoting an open 
access policy at your institution? (some examples: publications, outside consultants)

4.6 Please describe how an open access policy has been promoted and support sought 
at your institution. Include examples of what types of communication or promotional 
materials have been or are planned to be used (some examples: open forums, panels, 
brochures, websites).

4.7 Is there currently an active program soliciting faculty members to deposit the final 
peer-reviewed manuscripts of their published articles into the institutional repository?

 � Yes
 � No

4.8 What reasons have been offered in conversations with faculty and other constituents 
about why open access is important? Check all that apply.

 � Open access enables authors to retain more of their rights in their own work rather 
than assigning all rights to the publishers.

 � Open access is a means of addressing the pricing crisis in subscription scholarly 
journals and combating the monopoly that a few publishers have on the dissemi-
nation of scholarship.

 � Open access promotes access to research by anyone. It allows more people to 
benefit from scholarship, including the general public who may have an interest 
in or need for scholarly research.



492  College & Research Libraries July 2016

 � Open access allows faculty to not only be better researchers but also better educa-
tors. When professors can’t access the most recent research, they are deprived of 
the opportunity to bring that material into the classroom. With science advancing 
at an ever-increasing pace, it’s crucial that professors have access to cutting-edge 
research, so students’ education isn’t outdated before they even finish a course.

 � Open access facilitates collaboration on new research. With access barriers re-
moved, scientists and other researchers can share scholarship across borders and 
work together more efficiently to bring forth new ideas.

 � Open access supports public access. A large body of scholarship is funded through 
public tax dollars, and the public should be allowed free and unburdened access 
to the research they help support.

 � Scholarly research can be made open access through deposit in open access re-
positories (green OA) or through publication in open access journals (gold OA). 
Publication of scholarly research in gold OA journals does not signify that the 
research is of lesser quality. Gold OA scholarly literature is not lesser quality than 
traditionally published scholarship. Much of the open access literature published 
via gold OA is subject to the same or more rigorous peer review as traditional 
toll access journals.

 � Open access supports the institution’s land-grant mission.
 � Open access supports the institution’s education and/or research mission.
 � Open access enables access to research by scholars at institutions that cannot af-

ford access to the subscription-based journals in which the articles are published, 
especially those in non-Western countries.

 � Open access to research outputs is becoming a standard requirement at many 
funding agencies.

 � Other (Please detail below.) ____________________
 � We haven’t discussed the importance of open access with faculty and other con-

stituents.

4.9 What concerns or questions have been raised by faculty and others about the adop-
tion of an open access policy at your institution? Check all that apply.

 � Requirement of multiple deposits where funder policy also requires deposit of a 
work in an open access repository.

 � Complying with the policy will create a burden on faculty in terms of work 
involved in depositing articles in institutional repository or requesting waivers.

 � Questions about copyright ownership under policy, including concern that greater 
control being transferred to institution and that deposit in institutional repository 
permits unauthorized use of works by others.

 � Confusion as to what types of publications the policy applies, including questions 
about what is meant by “scholarly journal articles.”

 � Belief that policy requires publication in open access journals only.
 � Confusion about difference between “gold OA” and “green OA” and difference 

between place of publication versus requirement of deposit.
 � Publishers will refuse to publish their work if they are subject to an open access 

policy.
 � Open access policy infringes upon academic freedom.
 � If policy framed as a mandate, fear of institutional control or coercion.
 � Open access will hurt scholarly societies.
 � Other questions or concerns raised (please list) ____________________
 � We haven’t begun discussing an open access policy with faculty and others yet.



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  493

4.10 What responses have been given in reply to questions or concerns raised by faculty and 
others about the adoption of an open access policy at your institution? Check all that apply.

 � The version of the article to be deposited in the institutional repository is the final 
version of the peer-reviewed manuscript. The published version should not be 
deposited unless expressly allowed by the publisher, but a link to the published 
version should be provided when a manuscript is deposited.

 � The policy does not require publication in any particular type of journal; publica-
tion in any journal is acceptable as long as the final peer-reviewed version of the 
article is deposited in the institutional repository.

 � If a publisher refuses to publish an article because of the policy, a waiver is readily 
available to the faculty member.

 � Waivers are available without proof or justification of need.
 � Copyright ownership of a faculty member’s work is not being transferred to the 

institution; rather, the institution is merely given a nonexclusive license. Under 
the policy, authors retain more rights to and control over their work than through 
standard publishing agreements.

 � The policy only applies to scholarly journal articles published after the enactment 
of the policy and does not apply to creative works, monographs, or other royalty-
generating works.

 � Assistance is available for deposit of article manuscripts in the institutional repository.
 � Faculty members have responsibility for depositing their article manuscripts in 

the institutional repository.
 � If the article has been deposited in another open access repository (such as PubMed 

Central), the institution will harvest that copy for deposit in the institutional 
repository.

 � Faculty members may specify an embargo period (delay the visibility of their 
works in the institutional repository).

 � The benefits of depositing works in the institutional repository include inclusion in 
search engine indexing leads to greater discoverability of works, greater exposure to 
researchers and readers who can access the openly and freely available content, in-
teroperability with other repositories, and permanent safe archive for scholarly works.

 � The library will track the publication of articles by faculty and request the final 
peer-reviewed manuscripts from faculty.

 � Other (Please detail below) ____________________
 � We haven’t begun conversations with faculty and others.

4.11 How much time do you plan to spend on educating faculty and other constitu-
ents about open access and the impact of an open access policy before the policy is 
presented for formal adoption?

 � Less than 6 months
 � 6–12 months
 � 1–2 years
 � More than 2 years

4.12 What type of open access policy has been drafted or may be drafted based upon 
feedback received so far? (Definitions from “Good Practices for University Open-Access 
Policies” edited by Stuart Shieber and Peter Suber.)

 � Policy grants, without action by the author, the institution certain nonexclusive 
rights (a pre-existing license) to future research articles published by faculty and 
offers a waiver or an opt-out for authors. The policy also requires deposit in the 
institutional repository.



494  College & Research Libraries July 2016

 � Policy requires faculty to negotiate with publishers to retain certain nonexclu-
sive rights in their articles including the right to deposit their articles in the 
institutional repository.

 � Policy seeks no rights at all but requires faculty to deposit future articles in the 
institutional repository. Deposits will be available immediately upon deposit if 
institution has permission from author to make it available open access. Otherwise, 
deposit will be dark.

 � Policy seeks no rights at all and requires deposit in the institutional repository 
and open access availability only when the publisher permits it.

 � Policy is merely a statement of encouragement to publish future works open access.
 � Policy does not require open access but asks faculty to “opt in” to the practice of 

self-archiving and open access.
 � If the policy your institution is considering is a type not described here, or is a 

blend of two or more of these policy types, please detail below the general condi-
tions of the policy enacted at your institution: ____________________

4.13 If your policy draft will include a waiver, please select the conditions that will 
apply:

 � Waiver may be obtained or is granted without proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver requests approved with proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver only applies to the license or permission granted to the institution, not to 

the deposit in the repository.
 � Waiver applies to both the license or permission granted to the institution and 

the deposit requirement.
 � Waiver only applies to a single article.
 � Waiver applies to all articles by the author.

4.14 Will your policy draft allow authors to delay the open availability of the article 
after it is deposited (embargo)?

 � Yes
 � No
 � Undecided

4.15 Will your policy draft observe publisher embargoes on public access to deposited 
manuscripts?

 � Yes
 � No
 � In some cases (please explain) ____________________
 � Undecided

4.16 How likely do you think it is that an open access policy will be adopted at your 
institution?

 � Very Unlikely
 � Unlikely
 � Somewhat Unlikely
 � Undecided
 � Somewhat Likely
 � Likely
 � Very Likely



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  495

4.17 When do you think an open access policy will be brought forward for formal adoption?
 � Within the next 6 months
 � Within the next 6–12 months
 � In a year or more

4.18 Through what process will the open access policy be presented for formal adoption?
 � Faculty senate (or equivalent) vote
 � Administrative action
 � College or departmental vote
 � Other (please explain) ____________________

5.1 Who did your open access policy draft apply to?
 � All faculty
 � Only select colleges or departments

5.2 What colleges or departments did your institution’s open access policy draft apply 
to? Check all that apply.

 � College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
 � College of Medicine
 � College of Public Health
 � Libraries
 � Other(s) (please list) ____________________

5.3 Through what process was the open access policy presented for adoption?
 � Faculty senate (or equivalent) vote
 � Administrative action
 � College or departmental vote
 � Other (please explain) ____________________

5.4 What type of open access policy was proposed at your institution? (Definitions 
from “Good Practices for University Open-Access Policies” edited by Stuart Shieber 
and Peter Suber.)

 � Policy granted, without action by the author, the institution certain nonexclusive 
rights (a pre-existing license) to future research articles published by faculty and 
offers a waiver or an opt-out for authors. The policy also required deposit in the 
institutional repository.

 � Policy required faculty to negotiate with publishers to retain certain nonexclusive 
rights in their articles including the right to deposit their articles in the institu-
tional repository.

 � Policy sought no rights at all but required faculty to deposit future articles in the 
institutional repository. Deposits will be available immediately upon deposit if 
institution has permission from author to make it available open access. Otherwise, 
deposit will be dark.

 � Policy sought no rights at all and required deposit in the institutional repository 
and open access availability only when the publisher permits it.

 � Policy was merely a statement of encouragement to publish future works open access.
 � Policy did not require open access but asked faculty to “opt in” to the practice of 

self-archiving and open access.
 � If your policy was of a type not described here, or was a blend of two or more of 

these policy types, please detail below the general conditions of the policy voted 
on at your institution: ____________________



496  College & Research Libraries July 2016

5.5 If your policy draft included a waiver, please select the conditions that applied:
 � Waiver would be obtained or be granted without proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver requests approved with proof of justification or need.
 � Waiver only applied to the license or permission granted to the institution not to 

the deposit in the repository.
 � Waiver applied to both the license or permission granted to the institution and 

the deposit requirement.
 � Waiver only applied to a single article.
 � Waiver applied to all articles by the author.

5.6 Did your policy draft allow authors to delay open availability of the article after it 
was deposited (embargo)?

 � Yes
 � No

5.7 Prior to proposing an open access policy, was there an active program soliciting 
faculty members to deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscripts of their published 
articles into the institutional repository?

 � Yes
 � No

5.8 Please describe how the idea of an open access policy arose at your institution. 
Please include who or what body first raised the idea of adopting an open access policy.

5.9 Who had responsibility for promoting the open access policy and growing consensus 
for its support before it was presented for a vote? Names are not necessary, but titles 
or department affiliations would be useful.

5.10 What, if any, external supports or resources were utilized in promoting an open 
access policy at your institution? (examples: publications, outside consultants)

5.11 Please describe the process employed for promoting and growing consensus for 
support of an open access policy at your institution. Include examples of what types 
of communication or promotional materials were used (some examples: open forums, 
panels, brochures, websites).

5.12 How much time was spent on educating faculty and other constituents about 
open access and the impact of an open access policy before the policy was presented 
for adoption?

 � Less than 6 months
 � 6–12 months
 � 1–2 years
 � More than 2 years

5.13 What reasons were offered in conversations with faculty and others about why 
open access is important? Check all that apply.

 � Open access enables authors to retain more of their rights in their own work rather 
than assigning all rights to the publishers.

 � Open access is a means of addressing the pricing crisis in subscription scholarly 
journals and combating the monopoly that a few publishers have on the dissemi-
nation of scholarship.



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  497

 � Open access promotes access to research by anyone. It allows more people to 
benefit from scholarship, including the general public who may have an interest 
in or need for scholarly research.

 � Open access allows faculty to be not only better researchers but also better educa-
tors. When professors can’t access the most recent research, they are deprived of 
the opportunity to bring that material into the classroom. With science advancing 
at an ever-increasing pace, it’s crucial that professors have access to cutting-edge 
research, so students’ education is not outdated before they even finish a course.

 � Open access facilitates collaboration on new research. With access barriers re-
moved, scientists and other researchers can share scholarship across borders and 
work together more efficiently to bring forth new ideas.

 � Open access supports public access. A large body of scholarship is funded through 
public tax dollars, and the public should be allowed free and unburdened access 
to the research they help support.

 � Scholarly research can be made open access through deposit in open access re-
positories (green OA) or through publication in open access journals (gold OA). 
Publication of scholarly research in gold OA journals does not signify that the 
research is of lesser quality. Gold OA scholarly literature is not lesser quality than 
traditionally published scholarship. Much of the open access literature published 
via gold OA is subject to the same or more rigorous peer review as traditional 
toll access journals.

 � Open access supports the institution’s land-grant mission.
 � Open access supports the institution’s education and/or research mission.
 � Open access enables access to research by scholars at institutions that cannot af-

ford access to the subscription-based journals in which the articles are published, 
especially those in non-Western countries.

 � Open access to research outputs is becoming a standard requirement at many 
funding agencies.

 � Other (please detail below) ____________________
 � We didn’t discuss with faculty and other constituents the importance of open access.

5.14 What concerns or questions were most frequently raised by faculty before the 
open access policy was presented for a vote? Check all that apply.

 � Requirement of multiple deposits where funder policy also requires deposit of a 
work in an open access repository.

 � Complying with the policy will create a burden on faculty in terms of work 
involved in depositing articles in institutional repository or requesting waivers.

 � Questions about copyright ownership under policy, including concern that greater 
control being transferred to institution and that deposit in institutional repository 
permits unauthorized use of works by others.

 � Confusion as to what types of publications the policy applies, including questions 
about what is meant by “scholarly journal articles.”

 � Belief that policy requires publication in open access journals only.
 � Confusion about difference between “gold OA” and “green OA” and difference 

between place of publication versus requirement of deposit.
 � Publishers will refuse to publish their work if they are subject to an open access 

policy.
 � Open access policy infringes upon academic freedom.
 � If policy framed as a mandate, fear of institutional control or coercion.
 � Open access will hurt scholarly societies.
 � Other questions or concerns raised (please list) ____________________



498  College & Research Libraries July 2016

5.15 What responses were given in reply to questions or concerns raised by faculty and 
others about the adoption of an open access policy at your institution? Check all that apply.

 � The policy does not require publication in any particular type of journal; publica-
tion in any journal is acceptable as long as the article is deposited in the institu-
tional repository.

 � If a publisher refuses to publish an article because of the policy, a waiver is readily 
available to the faculty member.

 � Waivers are available without proof or justification of need.
 � Copyright ownership of a faculty member’s work is not being transferred to the 

institution; rather, the institution is merely given a nonexclusive license. Under 
the policy, authors retain more rights to and control over their work than through 
standard publishing agreements.

 � The policy only applies to scholarly journal articles published after the enactment 
of the policy and does not apply to creative works, monographs, or other royalty 
generating works.

 � Assistance is available for deposit of articles in the institutional repository.
 � Faculty members have responsibility for depositing their articles in the institu-

tional repository.
 � If the article has been deposited in another open access repository (for instance, 

PubMed Central), the institution will harvest that copy for deposit in the institu-
tional repository.

 � The version of the article to be deposited in the institutional repository is the final 
version of the peer-reviewed manuscript. The published version should not be 
deposited unless expressly allowed by the publisher, but a link to the published 
version should be provided when a manuscript is deposited.

 � Faculty members may specify an embargo period (delay the visibility of their 
works in the institutional repository).

 � The benefits of depositing works in the institutional repository include inclusion 
in search engine indexing leading to greater discoverability of works, greater ex-
posure to researchers and readers who can access the openly and freely available 
content, interoperability with other repositories, and permanent safe archive for 
scholarly works.

 � The library will track the publication of articles by faculty and request the final 
peer-reviewed manuscripts from faculty.

 � Other (please detail below) ____________________

5.16 In your opinion, why do you think your institution failed to adopt an open ac-
cess policy?

5.17 Do you think that your institution will again attempt to adopt an open access 
policy?

 � Yes
 � Unsure
 � No

5.18 Does your institution have a fund supporting publication in open access journals?
 � Yes
 � No

 
6.1 If you have any additional information or comments you’d like to share, please 
do so below.



Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions  499

Notes

 1. National Institutes of Health, NIH Public Access Policy Details, available online at http://
publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm [accessed 1 May 2015]. 

 2. Harvard University Library, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Open Access Policy, avail-
able online at https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/hfaspolicy [accessed 1 May 2015]. 

 3. California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609), available online at 
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_609&sess=CUR [accessed 1 May 
2015]; Illinois Open Access to Articles Act (SB 1900), available online at http://www.ilga.gov/
legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=1900&GAID=12&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=&SessionID=85&Sp
ecSess=&Session=&GA=98 [accessed 1 May 2015]; New York Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded 
Research Legislation (A180-2013 and S4050-2013), available online at http://open.nysenate.gov/
legislation/api/1.0/lrs-print/bill/S4050-2013 [accessed 1 May 2015].

 4. MIT Faculty Open Access Policy, available online at http://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-
open-access/open-access-at-mit/mit-open-access-policy/ [accessed 1 May 2015]; Duke University 
Open Access Policy for Faculty Scholarship, available online at http://library.duke.edu/research/
openaccess [accessed 1 May 2015]; Open Access Policy for the Academic Senate of the University 
of California, available online at http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-policy/policy-
text/ [accessed 1 May 2015].

 5. Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, available online at http://www.sparc.arl.org/
COAPI [accessed 1 May 2015]. 

 6. Good Practices for University Open Access Policies, available online at http://cyber.law.
harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies [accessed 1 May 2015]. 

 7. Xia Jingfeng et al., “A Review of Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate Policies,” portal: 
Libraries & The Academy 12 (2012): 85–102, doi:10.1353/pla.2012.0000.

 8. Ada Emmett et al., “Toward Open Access: It Takes a ‘Village,’” Journal of Library Adminis-
tration 51 (2011): 557–79, doi:10.1080/01930826.2011.589345.

 9. Kevin Smith, “Why Open Access? The Policy Environment and Process on One University 
Campus,” Insights: The UKSG Journal 25 (2012): 246–50, doi:10.1629/2048-7754.25.3.246.

10. Shannon Kipphut-Smith, “Engaging in a Campus-Wide Conversation about Open Ac-
cess,” Texas Library Journal 90 (2014): 70–71.

11. Shannon Kipphut-Smith, “‘Good Enough’: Developing a Simple Workflow for Open Ac-
cess Policy Implementation,” College & Undergraduate Libraries 21 (2014): 279–94, doi:10.1080/106
91316.2014.932263.

12. Brian Kern and Susan Wishnetsky, “Adopting and Implementing an Open Access Policy: 
The Library’s Role,” Serials Librarian 66 (2014): 196–203, doi:10.1080/0361526X.2014.880035.

13. In the survey instructions, respondents were given the option whether they wanted to 
identify the institution they were reporting on, and the authors assured anonymity for those who 
did identify.

14. Peter Suber, Open Access (Boston: MIT Press 2012), 82.
15. Michael Eisen, “Let’s Not Get Too Excited about the New UC Open Access Policy,” it is NOT 

junk (blog), August 2, 2013, available online at www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1413 [accessed 1 
May 2015].