Florida Gulf Coast University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

The Open Access Archiving Policy was adopted by Faculty Senate on March 31, 2017, ensuring that future scholarly articles authored by FGCU faculty will be made available to the public. This website is a resource for FGCU faculty to learn about the policy and how to share scholarship. The opt-out option ensures that all faculty have the freedom to publish in the journal of their choice and choose whether to participate. The policy went into effect on August 1, 2017.

In recognition of Florida Gulf Coast University's status as a public university, the Faculty is committed to sharing its research and scholarship publicly and as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to Florida Gulf Coast University permission to make available their scholarly articles. The policy is intended to support public access to research and promote greater impact for Faculty research.

In legal terms, each Faculty member grants to Florida Gulf Coast University a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of their scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored while the person is a member of the Faculty from the date of the adoption of this policy, August 1, 2017. At the request of a Faculty member, the Library, as the Provost will designate, will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for as specified period of time.

Each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the accepted manuscript (post-peer review, pre-publisher typesetting) or the final version where permitted by the publisher no later than the date of its publication at no charge in an appropriate format, such as PDF. The FGCU Library may make the article available to the public in DigitalFGCU, which is the university's institutional repository.

In coordination with the Office of the Provost, the Library will be responsible for interpretation of this policy, resolving any disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time. The policy will be reviewed after three years by the Faculty Senate Library Team and a report presented to the Faculty. http://fgcu.libguides.com/sc/oaap

DigitalFGCU is the university’s institutional repository. The institutional repository (IR) does have some FGCU journals publicly accessible, such as Aquila Student Research Journal and The Mangrove Review https://fgcu.digital.flvc.org/ As it is new, the university is at a nascent phase of acquiring content.

The general estimation of the percentage of peer-reviewed scholarly works published annually that are deposited in a designated open access repository was, as of this prior year, approximately 5.63%. Because the repository is a relatively new creation (it went live at the end of the 2017 calendar year), our efforts were concentrated primarily on retroactive materials. Now that a scholarly communications program is being fully developed, we anticipate that number to rise exponentially.