Butler University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Digital Commons @ Butler University is an open access repository dedicated to preserving and making accessible the intellectual and creative output of Butler University. Our repository contains the scholarly output of our faculty, staff, and students, which include but are not limited to: journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, conference proceedings and presentations, posters, podcasts, blog posts, music recordings, and scores. We have over 3.8 million downloads worldwide, and over 21,000 openly, accessible works.

Open Access Policy for Butler University
The Faculty of Butler University is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, and recognizing the importance of letting faculty members choose appropriate venues of publications for their scholarly work, the Faculty adopts the following policy:

The current Butler University Intellectual Property policy governing faculty publications will be followed, with the additional provision that Butler University will make published articles written by faculty members available for open dissemination. More specifically, each Faculty member retains copyright, and for the purpose of making their articles widely and freely available in an open access repository, grants to the Trustees of Butler University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold, and appropriate attribution is given to authors, authorizing others to do the same. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a faculty member, except for publications completed before the adoption of this policy. The Office of the Provost will waive application of the policy for a particular scholarly
publication or delay access for a specified period of time upon written notification by the author, who informs Butler of the reason. Faculty members are further encouraged to make all of their publications, not just articles, available for open dissemination as appropriate. To assist Butler in distributing the scholarly articles, as of the date of publication, each faculty member will make available an electronic copy of his or her final version of the publication at no charge to a designated representative of the Provost’s Office in one of the appropriate formats specified by the Provost’s Office.

The Libraries, acting on behalf of the Provost’s Office, will make the articles available to the public in an open-access repository, the Digital Commons @ Butler University. Upon special request, an article will not be made available to the public via Digital Commons for an agreed-upon embargo period. Policy adopted April 28, 2020. Draft adopted April 28, 2020. The Office of the Provost, in consultation with the Vice Provost and University
Libraries, will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty. The Libraries’ Collections and Digital Services department will provide ongoing faculty oversight, advising and reporting annually to the Office of the Provost.
The policy is to take effect immediately; it will be reviewed after three years, with a report presented to the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate calls upon the Vice Provost and University Libraries to develop and monitor a plan for a service or mechanism that would render compliance with the policy as convenient for the Faculty as possible.

This policy is based on a model open access policy developed by Stuart Shieber of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication. It includes a freely waivable rights-retaining license and a deposit requirement. This language is based on and informed by the policies voted by faculties at Harvard, MIT, Stanford University School of Education, Duke University, the University of California, and others. Information explaining the motivation for and implementation of open access policies, including an annotated model policy, is available at the web site of
Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication (http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/).

Extensive information about good practices for university open access policies is provided in a widely endorsed guide from the Harvard Open Access Project (http://bit.ly/goodoa).

Butler University does not currently provide open access article processing charge funds for employees.

Through Digital Commons @ Butler University, Butler University Libraries provides open access journal hosting services who provide publishing support at no cost. The Scholarly Communication Publishing Associate provides support for our six open access journals. Our OA journals are not limited to only faculty, but include two student-run journals. Students and faculty have a consultation with the Publishing Associate to go over setup, details, and sustainability. Once the details are decided, the Publishing Associate creates the journal on Digital Commons and provides training for the journal members. If needed, some journals have additional support through copyediting or journal design. Finally, the Publishing Associate uploads the current volume and maintains past editions.

Before the OA policy, Butler deposited about 15-20% of our faculty’s peer-reviewed scholarship into the IR. Prior to the OA policy, Digital Commons was an opt-in policy, which required outreach to faculty, their ability to provide their scholarship, faculty and publisher permission, and maintaining a relationship of providing their updated scholarship. In the past two years, the Scholarly Communication Teams has provided extensive outreach to faculty about publishing in open access journals, publishing green OA, and negotiating author rights for OA deposit. With the OA policy in place, our percentages will be higher, but with the OA policy going into effect during the COVID-19 pandemic, our numbers will be greatly skewed. We are hoping to achieve 40% deposited by 2022, barring any additional complications from the pandemic.