Scholarly Communication

On March 27, 2017, the ASU University Senate voted to approve an open access policy for ASU. The policy reads:

1. Faculty members are encouraged to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to Scholarly Works to Arizona State University to exercise any and all rights under copyright as are necessary to achieve the goals of open access, dissemination, and preservation and to authorize others to do the same, provided that this license is solely for educational and non-commercial purposes.  When granting this license, Faculty members will provide, at no cost to the university, a copy of those Scholarly Works to the university so that the university may exercise its rights given by this license and  comply with its obligations to sponsors or other third parties. This expressly includes the right for the university to deposit Scholarly Works in any university or third party repository.
2. However, upon accepting or receiving an external grant or contract which includes a public or open access policy, each Faculty member automatically grants to Arizona State University the license as defined in section one to any Scholarly Works resulting from that grant or contract.
3. Under this policy, the author retains copyright ownership, unless that author chooses to transfer rights to other parties, such as a publisher. Arizona State University retains only the limited rights outlined in section one.
4. The policy applies to all Scholarly Works authored or co- authored while the person is a member of the Faculty. Not included in this policy are 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, nor any Scholarly Work that is not related to Arizona State University.
5. The Office of the Provost will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty as needed.
6. The University Senate will review the policy no less frequently than every three years and a report will be made available to the Faculty.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum, "Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research" on August 25th, 2022 directing all federal agencies to update their public access policies and require all federally funded research to be free and immediately accessible. This expands on the 2013 Memorandum, which only required certain federal agencies to provide publicly accessible research and data within 12 months of publication. The updated guidance now requires any research that receives federal funding to be freely accessible without a delay. Agencies with research and development expenditures of at least $100 million annually will submit their initial public access plan updates by February 21, 2023. Agencies with smaller research and development expenditures will have until August 20, 2023. All federal agencies must have updated plans in place by December 31st, 2025. Further guidance on this will be forthcoming, and researchers who receive federal funding may reach out to us with questions about making their publications and data freely accessible. 

Here are some resources to help stay informed.

Due to the growing demand for a visible and public return on funded research, more and more funding agencies are adopting open access or data-archiving mandates as a condition of funding. Here are some of the largest non-governmental policies: