Open Access: OA Policies

This is a guide to good practices for college and university open-access (OA) policies. It's based on the type of rights-retention OA policy first adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Kansas. Policies of this kind have since been adopted at a wide variety of institutions in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, for example, at public and private institutions, large and small institutions, affluent and indigent institutions, research universities and liberal arts colleges, and at whole universities, schools within universities, and departments within schools.

The following is a model open-access policy in the Harvard style — with a freely waivable rights-retaining license and a deposit requirement. This language is based on and informed by the policies voted by several Harvard faculties, as well as MIT, Stanford University School of Education, Duke University, and others.

A guide to Open Access principles, publishing, and related CSU Fullerton initiatives, including a brief history of the CSU Statewide Open Access resolution.

This is a great place to find resources and information about OA policies. At the top, if you click on "Members" you can see a list of schools that have adopted an OA policy; they are listed as "Full" members. The "Affiliate" members are schools that are interested in or working toward a policy.