4.2 Institutional Mandates

An institutional open access mandate requires authors to submit copies of their works to the institutional repository. Even though authors are ready to self-archive; it appears self archiving if incentivized, will yield better results as authors will have to contribute consistently. The philosophy of open access is found quite acceptable to academicians. They are willing to deposit their articles whenever they reply to questions whether they would consider OA as a possible mode of publication. But then repositories are not populated at the same rate at which academics are producing papers. The main reason for this is that even today academics prefer to publish in journal of commercial publishers with high ranking. The reason is that institutions are still considering 'ranking' as the main indicator of the quality. In this context if institutional mandates along with incentives linked to OA productivity would encourage authors to deposit into OA repositories. In this regard some of the institutional mandate policies have a significant impact of growth of OA published material.

4.2.1 NIH Public Access Policy

US National Institute of Health (NIH) policy became a mandate in 2007. On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed a bill that required the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to mandate open online access to all research it funded. It is the first mandate for a chief public funding agency in the US that involves research to be openly accessible. It changed the 2005 NIH Public Access Policy, which requested, but did not require, open access to NIH-funded research. The mandate clearly instructed that investigators sponsored by the NIH submit their peer-reviewed manuscripts to the National Library of Medicine’s open access repository PubMed Central when the manuscript is acknowledged for publication. The manuscript would then become openly available via PubMed Central within 12 months of publication in a journal. (http://libraries.mit.edu/..../research-funders/)

4.2.2 National Center for Atmospheric Research Open Access Policy

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), US, a national lab, passed an Open Access policy in October 2009, that necessitates that peer-reviewed research published by its scientists and staff in scientific journals must be made freely available online through its institutional repository. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is the first of the NSF’s Federally Funded Research and Development Centers to adopt an OA mandate.( http://legacy.earlham.edu/..oa-mandate-at-us-national-lab.html)

4.2.3 Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI)

The Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) brings together representatives from North American universities with established faculty open access policies and those in the process of developing such policies. It was formed to share information and experiences and to illuminate opportunities for moving faculty-led open access forward at member institutions and advocating for open access nationally and internationally. COAPI offers a collection of best and evolving practices to act as a roadmap for inspiring, promoting and implementing open access polices at institutions without existing or effective open access policies.( http://www.sparc.arl.org/COAPI)

4.2.4 MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

This OA policy28 at MIT was undertaken on 2009.The Faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is committed to disseminating its research results and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: 'Each Faculty member grants to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology nonexclusive permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles for the purpose of open dissemination. In legal terms, each Faculty member grants to MIT a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same'. The policy is applicable to all scholarly articles written while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.

4.2.5 Harvard Business School Open Access Policy

The Faculty of the Harvard Business School is committed to open access29. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: 'Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available articles that he or she has prepared for journal peer review and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of these articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit'.

4.2.6 Rutgers Open Access Policy

Rutgers scholars deposit legal copies of scholarly articles in the University’s digital repository (RUcore), making scholarship freely accessible to the readers and researchers on the Internet. The policy states that, the State University of New Jersey, is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. The Rutgers author remains the copyright owner unless that author chooses to transfer the copyright to a publisher.(Otto, 2012)

4.2.7 Princeton University Open Access Policy

Princeton university OA policy30 states that : “The members of the Faculty of Princeton University strive to make their publications openly accessible to the public. To that end, each Faculty member hereby grants to The Trustees of Princeton University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all copyrights in his or her scholarly articles published in any medium, whether now known or later invented, provided the articles are not sold by the University for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same". This grant applies to all scholarly articles that any person authors or co-authors while appointed as a member of the Faculty, except for any such articles authored or co-authored before the adoption of this policy or subject to a conflicting agreement formed before the adoption of this policy.

4.2.8 University of Leicester OA Mandate

The University of Leicester has joined a growing number of UK institutions in adopting an open access mandate31 for research publications. Academic staff are now required to submit their research publications to the open access, externally-accessible, Leicester Research Archive (LRA) via the internal Integrated Research Information System (IRIS). Research students are required to submit an e-copy of their thesis to LRA in order to graduate. 


Last modified: Tuesday, 13 April 2021, 12:08 PM