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Office of Scholarly Communication
Open access at Stanford
Approved policy
23 November 2020
This resolution was approved by Stanford’s Faculty Senate on 19 November 2020.
Item 1: Resolution Establishing an Open Access Policy
Stanford University’s Academic Council is committed to disseminating the fruits of our university’s research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, and in line with the University’s Policy on Openness in Research, the Stanford Academic Senate adopts the following policy:
“Each member of the Academic Council grants to Stanford University permission to make available their scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms, the permission granted by each Academic Council member is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of their scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit[1]. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is an Academic Council member 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. The Provost or Provost’s designate in the Office of Scholarly Communications will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written request by an Academic Council member explaining the need for such a waiver.
To assist the University in distributing the articles, each Academic Council member will provide an electronic copy of the final version of the article at no charge under the terms of this license to the Stanford Digital Repository. The Stanford Digital Repository will provide interfaces and other facilities making as frictionless as possible deposit of articles
Stanford University shall make the article available to the public in the Stanford Digital Repository under an open license.”
This policy will be reviewed three years after its passage.
Item 2: Establishing an Office of Scholarly Communications
The Committee on Libraries recommends the establishment of an Office of Scholarly Communication based in the Stanford Libraries and operating under the authority of the Provost. This office, in consultation with the Office of the General Counsel, will be responsible for interpreting the University’s Open Access policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Academic Senate from time to time.
We recommend that such an office be staffed with full-time, professional employees. C-LIB will be the oversight body for the Senate of the Academic Counsel, receiving reports on a regular basis.
Item 3: Adoption of ORCID IDs
Each member of the Academic Council will obtain an Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID ID), with assistance provided as necessary by the Stanford Libraries.
[1] For clarity, this requirement supports Stanford authors in the publication of op-eds and similar public scholarship without requirements for granting of rights to the University.