Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 67.20
Liaison Jessica Thompson
Submission Date June 20, 2024

STARS v2.2

Northern Michigan University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.67 / 2.00 Jessica Thompson
AVP Sustainability
People Culture & Wellbeing
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution offer repository hosting that makes versions of journal articles, book chapters, and other peer-reviewed scholarly works by its employees freely available on the public internet?:
Yes

Website URL where the open access repository is available:
A brief description of the open access repository:

NMU Commons is the University's institutional repository, which preserves and provides access to the research and scholarly output of the University. The Commons Includes student work such as Master's Theses and Conspectus Borealis (NMU's undergraduate interdisciplinary journal) as well as work by faculty from all departments across campus.


Does the institution have a published policy that requires its employees to publish scholarly works open access or archive final post-peer reviewed versions of scholarly works in an open access repository?:
No

A copy of the institution's open access policy:
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The institution's open access policy:

Whereas: Publication in open-access journals—which are free and accessible to all readers on the World Wide Web—is an increasingly effective mode of scholarly communication; Commercial ownership of scholarly publishing is detrimental to the dissemination of research and scholarship when publication decisions are based on profit; Faculty cede control of their research results and scholarship when they transfer copyright to their publishers; The University must buy back at increasingly high costs the published products of the research and scholarship that it subsidizes; Students’ curriculum suffers when increasing prices make appropriate journal support for coursework and research too expensive to buy; Faculty can help change the scholarly publishing marketplace because publishers rely on faculty to serve as readers, authors, editors, referees, and as members of learned societies; Therefore be it resolved that the Academic Senate supports alternatives to commercial ownership of scholarly publishing. The Senate urges the University to promote open access in ways consistent with standards of peer review and scholarly excellence including the following measures: Faculty authors are encouraged to negotiate certain key rights to ensure wide dissemination of their work without harming the publisher’s rights, such as the right to a) post the work on a personal Web site or in an institutional repository, and b) distribute copies in the course of teaching. Faculty, especially tenured faculty, are encouraged to support peer-reviewed open-access journals and journals published by nonprofit professional associations, university presses, and those commercial publishers with fair pricing. The library, in consultation with respective departments, is expected to cancel high-priced journals with minimal readership on campus, to negotiate aggressively with publishers, to take collective action, and to refuse to pay unsustainable prices. The university will explore establishing infrastructure to sustain digital open access to scholarship, such as an open-access institutional repository or archives where research results, NMU theses, and scholarship can be posted. See https://lib.nmu.edu/about/policies/open-access-initiative


Does the policy cover the entire institution? :
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Does the institution provide an open access article processing charge (APC) fund for employees?:
No

A brief description of the open access APC fund:
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Does the institution provide open access journal hosting services through which peer-reviewed open access journals are hosted on local servers with dedicated staff who provide publishing support at no (or minimal) cost?:
No

A brief description of the open access journal hosting services:
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Estimated percentage of peer-reviewed scholarly works published annually by the institution’s employees that are deposited in a designated open access repository:
50

Website URL where information about the institution’s support for open access is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The original open-access policy was implemented in 2007, and does allow for exceptions. In 2012, the University created the "NMU Commons" and faculty are now required to archive post-peer-reviewed manuscripts in this open-access repository. Uploads and waivers are managed by research librarian Kevin McDonough. Additionally, every February faculty members submit annual evaluations, which include a list of publications over the past year; Kevin's team reviews the publications and adds them to the NMU Commons.


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