Skip to Main Content
UMBC
Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery

UMBC Open Access Policy

What Does the Open Access Policy Mean for Me?

What does it mean to grant a license?

Under copyright law, the author of an original work generally retains all rights in and to that work, including the rights to use, reuse, distribute, adapt, and profit from the work. That bundle of rights is referred to as copyright. Copyright owners may permit others to use their work for certain purposes through the grant of a license. For example, a copyright owner may grant a license to adapt a written work for film or to distribute a photograph for sale online. Licenses may be granular and nonexclusive, permitting copyright holders to license works multiple times or to multiple entities with different terms. 

The nonexclusive license granted under the Open Access Policy allows UMBC to make the Author Approved-Version of faculty articles available in ScholarWorks@UMBC. However, faculty authors retain copyright in their original works in accordance with the University's Intellectual Property Policy and may otherwise license articles they own.

How does the Open Access policy work with the UMBC Intellectual Property Policy?

This new policy builds upon the UMBC Intellectual Property Policy. The new Policy grants a non-exclusive license to the University for the purpose of open access, but faculty members will continue to own copyright in and to their own works in accordance with the existing IP Policy.

To comply with this Policy, must I pay the publisher an Article Processing Chart (APC)?

No. This policy grants an automatic license for UMBC to publish your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM or post-print) in its open repository, ScholarWorks@UMBC.  Most journals do not require payment of a fee to share AAMs in this way. Paying an APC is generally associated with making the published version of the article open access.

You can use the Sherpa Romeo database to check a particular journal's default rules on sharing articles via repositories. If the default rules do not permit you to share your paper, you can modify your publishing contract before signing using an ADDENDUM or you can submit an automatic Policy waiver form. 

If you have questions about the Open Access Policy or the template author’s addendum, please contact scholarworks-group@umbc.edu. 

 

Who and what does the Policy apply to?

Does the license to UMBC apply to articles written before the policy was adopted?

No. The policy does not apply to any articles that were completed before the policy was enacted, nor to any articles for which faculty members have entered into an incompatible publishing agreement before the policy was adopted. Non-faculty authors are not  subject to this policy but may sign the voluntary Individual Open Access License, which also does not apply to articles written before the license is signed.

Does the license to UMBC apply to articles written after a faculty member leaves UMBC?

No. Once you are no longer affiliated with the UMBC, any articles you write are not subject to this policy and are not licensed to UMBC. Likewise, the voluntary Individual Open Access License only applies as long as the author is affiliated with UMBC.

Does the license apply to co-authored papers?

Yes. If you are a co-author of an article, you should inform your co-authors about UMBC’s Open Access License granted pursuant to this policy (or the voluntary Individual Open Access License). As with other articles, you may elect to submit a waiver  form for a co-authored article.

Each joint author of an article holds copyright in the article and, individually, has the authority to grant UMBC an Open Access License. However, a waiver submission from one author is sufficient to waive the nonexclusive license to UMBC.

Please contact scholarworks-group@umbc.edu with any questions you may have about submitting a waiver form for a co-authored paper.

What kinds of writings does the policy cover?

The Open Access Policy only covers peer-reviewed scholarly articles. In the language of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, these are the primary works that scholars publish "for the sake of inquiry and knowledge" and "give to the world without expectation of payment." Scholarly articles are typically presented in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and conference proceedings.

While ScholarWorks@UMBC, UMBC's repository, welcomes scholarly works other than articles, the Open Access Policy applies only to articles. Among the works outside the category of scholarly articles are books, popular articles, commissioned articles, fiction and poetry, encyclopedia entries, ephemeral writings, lecture notes, and lecture videos.

The voluntary Individual Open Access License is also limited to scholarly articles.

What version of my scholarly article should I send to the Library?

Under the Open Access Policy, authors will deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM), which includes any changes made after peer-review and has been accepted for publication by the journal. It does not include unilateral edits made by the journal after peer review, or changes that relate to the journal's look and feel. Documents that have been typeset or copyedited by the publisher (such as proofs or the final published version) are not AAMs, but if you wrote your article in a publisher-supplied template then that is acceptable. In a few cases we will deposit the published version, also called the Version of Record (VOR). For example, we will deposit this version when UMBC or the author has paid an Article Processing Charge for that article, or when the publisher gives permission to deposit that version. If you have questions about which version to deposit in a given case, please contact the Libraries’ scholarworks-group@umbc.edu.

What if I'm a non-faculty author (e.g., student, fellow, staff member, etc) and I would like my articles to be covered by an open access license?

Current graduate students, fellows, non-faculty researchers, and faculty members not covered by this policy may create a similar license for themselves through the voluntary Individual Open Access License .

They may also use the template ADDENDUM as a basis for negotiating with publishers and they can reach out to  scholarworks-group@umbc.edu with questions. 

 

Waivers, Embargoes, and Exceptions

What if a journal publisher refuses to publish my article because of this prior license to UMBC?

You have a number of options. You may:

  • Obtain a waiver of the license and let the publisher know that you have done so; or
  • Obtain an embargo to delay deposit of the work in ScholarWorks@UMBC and let the publisher know you have done so; or
  • Negotiate with the publisher for acceptance of UMBCs nonexclusive license; or finally,
  • Try to seek a different publisher. The Library can provide you with resources and assistance as you work with publishers to pick an option that works best for you. Contact scholarworks-group@umbc.edu .

Many institutions using this type of access policy report that they have not heard of a single case in which a journal has refused to publish an article merely because of the prior University license, because the waiver and embargo options offer flexibility and protection to both authors and publishers.

Some journals state that they won't take papers that have been posted in preprint servers or repositories. What happens in these cases?

The UMBC Policy does not require preprints. The Policy anticipates  deposit of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM), the final, peer-reviewed version before the publishers adds typesetting, layout, and pagination. Other institutions employing similar policies (e.g., Harvard, MIT, Penn State) have not reported problems with this model. 

Of course, the automatic waiver is always available in these types of cases and does not rely on any evaluative process or approval process. Faculty members simply complete an online form and the waiver will be automatically granted.

Can I embargo my article for a period of time?

Yes, it is possible to embargo or restrict access to documents in  for a finite period of time. Faculty members must contact the Libraries to set the end date, and restrictions  will be removed automatically at the end of the embargo period. Reach out to scholarworks-group@umbc.edu to request an embargo.

Personal Impact and Metrics

A high-profile journal reaches a targeted audience; won't posting the article into a mass storage site decrease visibility and use?

The policy actually increases visibility and accessibility. High-profile journals hide research publications behind paywalls that hinder access by researchers, students, institutions, and the general public who cannot afford to subscribe or license their content. Repositories like ScholarWorks@UMBC are enhanced with metadata, crawled by Google and other major search engines, and designed to increase the visibility, reputation, and prestige of the University and its faculty. Depositing an article in ScholarWorks@UMBC in accordance with the policy does not preclude publication in a journal.

How will people find and access the scholarly articles in ScholarWorks@UMBC? Has there been thought about making the repository work with Google Scholar and other kinds of indexing systems or search platforms?

Discovery of UMBC's scholarly content is available through Google Scholar, but this content is also discoverable in virtually all other commercial search engines like Yahoo and Bing as well as niche search engines like DuckDuckGo and Qwant. ScholarWorks@UMBC and other OA content is discoverable through open-access indexing services such as CORE (core.ac.uk) and BASE (base-search.net).  ScholarWorks@UMBC data is also harvested by Unpaywall, which makes it available for integration with WorldCat.org and other search interfaces. Unpaywall also offers a browser extension to make discovery of OA versions of articles easy for researchers. We anticipate additional development and indexing opportunities in the future, which will allow for increased discovery and access to open access articles. 

If an author deposits an Author Approved Manuscript (AAM) into a repository that grants Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), won't this cause unintended consequences when people fail to cite the DOI of the published Version of Record?

To address this concern, we always include the publisher-based DOIs associated with Versions of Record when we load works into ScholarWorks@UMBC. In regard to discoverability, Google Scholar, for example, finds articles across PubMed, ResearchGate, and Harvard's post-print server, and groups duplicate versions together, finding the same article with different DOIs.

Some high impact journals charge open access fees upwards of $3,000 (or even much more) for a single article. What mechanisms exist to limit the cost to researchers who want to support the equitable or open access movement?

The Library is working with the Faculty Senate toward establishing an Open Access Publishing Fund that would cover a limited amount of article processing charges for UMBC authors.

Effects on Scholarly Publishing

Will there be any long-term impact on journals if a lot of major universities move to this type of policy? Would publishers look negatively at incoming articles associated with these types of agreements?

If many major universities move to this type of policy, the long-term impact will be to lower the cost of academic publishing across the board to more reasonable levels. The largest publishers of scientific and scholarly research realize profits greater than Apple, Microsoft, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and other international technology companies and financial institutions. Reducing the cost of journals would make funds available for monographs, media, digitized primary sources, and other content for the UMBC’s programs and research.  An institution's policy regarding authors' rights should have no impact on the decisions of publishers who claim to produce peer-reviewed literature.

Won't "Green OA" policies like this eventually harm non-profit "Gold OA" journals, too, if the journals' business models are based on Article Processing Charges (APCs)?

Under the UMBC policy, faculty members are always free to publish in any journal they choose, including gold OA journals. The ability to self-archive peer-reviewed manuscripts shares the OA aims of these journals, while at the same time, has not been shown to have a noticeable negative impact on gold OA journals, which continue to be used for version-of-record publication. We also believe that a positive side effect of this policy is that there should eventually be more money, not less money, in the ecosystem to pay for non-profit gold OA publishing, because open access achieved through green OA reduces the need to pay for subscriptions and APCs from commercial publishers.

Won't publishers eventually take action against this policy's model of green open access?

Many publishers have now accepted green open access and have issued policies of their own that explicitly support self-archiving of peer-reviewed Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs). For example, under SAGE's Green Open Access policy, the "accepted version of the article may be posted in the author's institutional repository and reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses." Some publishers also accept sharing of the published articles (version of record) after a formal embargo period. For example, Wiley's self-archiving policy states: "Authors of articles published in Wiley journals are permitted to self-archive the submitted (preprint) version of the article at any time, and may self-archive the accepted (peer-reviewed) version after an embargo period." Having said this, however, the default license in our Equitable Access policy supersedes publishers' policies. Once the UMBC's policy is in place, authors can post their AAMs in DRUM without delay.

There have been cases of research retractions, malpractice, and even fraud in the news lately. Experts have connected these cases to an erosion in the public trust in science and academic research. Does open access to scholarship exacerbate this situation?

There are risks involved when knowledge is openly shared, but the benefits and ethical reasons for sharing knowledge equitably outweigh these risks in our view. Our policy mitigates some of these risks as well, through the sharing of work that has already undergone scrutiny through peer review. We believe that greater misinformation can occur when science and the outputs of scholarly research are kept locked behind paywalls or are otherwise inaccessible. Continuing to block content dissemination and keep processes in the dark are not the solutions to these troubling problems. Instead, more transparency and openness in the research community, e.g., through open science, open peer review, etc., could reveal flaws and problematic research faster than before. The UMBC community should always look for ways to make research and scientific communication more trustworthy and reliable. Despite examples of retractions and scandals, the movement toward openness and transparency is part of making science better and more trustworthy, which is necessary to increase the general public's trust in our work.

Won't this policy have adverse effects on scholarly societies? Many of them rely on publishing for revenue.

Some scholarly societies have turned over production and distribution of their publications to large commercial publishers. In turn, these publishers have profited considerably from their takeover of scholarly society publishing. Publishers pass on subscription fees, APCs, and other costs to the researchers and institutions that make up societies' memberships. The current funding model for many of these publications, therefore, does little more than shuffle costs and fees among researchers, their societies, and their institutions. This is neither efficient nor sustainable. Academic institutions, publishers, and societies must work together to create new funding models that are fair and sustainable for all stakeholders.  

See Naim K, Brundy C, Samberg RG. “Collaborative transition to open access publishing by scholarly societies.” Mol Biol Cell. 2021 Feb 15;32(4):311-313. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E20-03-0178. PMID: 33587648; PMCID: PMC8098815; and “Transitioning Society Publications to Open Access” (2019, August 13). Bridging learned society publishing and open access: An international collaboration and webinar series. Available at: https://tspoa.org/2019/07/30/254/