Boston College
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Institution has a published open access policy that ensures that versions of future scholarly articles by faculty and staff are deposited in a designated open access repository.

The policy may allow for publisher embargoes and/or provide a waiver option that allows faculty to opt-out of the open access license/program for individual articles. Open access policies and programs that are strictly voluntary (opt-in) in nature (including open access policies published by external funding agencies) do not earn points unless the institution also provides financial incentives to support faculty members with article processing and other open access publication charges.

Policies and programs adopted by entities of which the institution is part (e.g. government or university system) may count for this credit as long as the policies apply to and are followed by the institution.

The open access repository may be managed by the institution or the institution may participate in a consortium with a consortial and/or outsourced open access repository.

This credit applies to all institutions where research is considered during faculty and/or staff promotion or tenure decisions. Institutions that do not consider research in promotion or tenure decisions as a matter of policy or standard practice may choose to omit or include the Research subcategory.

Pursuing one or more Research credits and omitting other credits in the subcategory as “not applicable” is not allowed.

Institutions earn the maximum of 2 points available for this credit by having an open access policy that meets the criteria above covering the entire campus. Partial points are available if some, but not all, of the institution’s research-producing divisions (e.g. schools, colleges, departments) are covered by an open access policy. For example, an institution with an open access policy covering 2 of its 6 colleges that produce research would earn 1 point (half of the points available for this credit).

Timeframe

Current policies and programs at the time of submission are eligible for this credit.

Sampling and Data Standards

Not applicable