| Overall Rating | Silver - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 54.63 |
| Liaison | Kelly Wellman |
| Submission Date | Jan. 23, 2015 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
Texas A&M University
AC-11: Access to Research
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
0.00 / 2.00 |
Total number of institutional divisions (e.g. schools, colleges, departments) that produce research:
Number of divisions covered by a policy assuring open access to research:
Date Revised: Jan. 27, 2015
A brief description of the open access policy, including the date adopted and repository(ies) used:
The Texas A&M University Libraries currently is developing an Open Access program, policy and marketing campaign. At present the University does not have an Open Access Policy that has been formally adopted by the University’s Faculty.
The Libraries’ working Open Access Policy, in brief, is:
“Texas A&M library is an active advocate of open access, believing that open access can help address both the price barriers and the permission barriers that undermine global access to the products of Texas A&M’s scholarly and creative work, as well as helping alleviate the serious issue of providing TAMU scholars access to the world’s scholarly literature due to rising subscription costs.”
The University’s institutional repository, called OAK Trust (established in 2013), is charged with collecting, preserving and distributing “the scholarly output of the University, including scholarly articles and books, electronic theses and dissertations, conference proceedings, technical reports, and digitized library collections.”
OAK Trust, in addition to providing an online archive also provides “a set of services that a university offers to members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.”
OAK Trust is in fact made up of two databases – the archival database/repository and another that provides a platform that supports both the collection of ongoing research data and the facilitation of online collaboration between research entities and/or individuals.
(Source: Texas A&M University Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communications Initiative: Summary by Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director)
A copy of the open access policy:
The open access policy:
As indicated above the University Libraries’ is currently working on crafting and advocating for an Open Access Policy. Currently the working document contains the following components:
1. “Digital and networking technologies are prompting significant change and opportunity in the practices of scholars, particularly as they collaborate, the publication of their scholarship, and the scholarly communications process.”
2. “The Texas A&M University Libraries is an active advocate of open access, believing that open access can help address both the price barriers and the permission barriers that undermine global access to the products of Texas A&M’s scholarly and creative work, as well as helping alleviate the serious issue of providing TAMU scholars access to the world’s scholarly literature due to rising subscription costs. The programs below seek to provide the tools and services that remove barriers to scholars publishing their scholarship as open access.”
3. “New, web-based tools and services are being developed that can enhance the visibility of faculty research, support their scholarly identity, and support the discovery of potential collaborators. These projects rely on creating unique identifiers for scholars, harvesting the metadata associated with their scholarly work, and developing semantic web applications and databases.”
(Source: Texas A&M University Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communications Initiative: Summary by Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director)
The website URL where the open access repository is available:
A brief description of how the institution’s library(ies) support open access to research:
The University Libraries not only hosts the two platforms that make up the OAK Trust Repository but also provides:
1) OAK Fund - funds to support the fees assessed for publication of articles in Open Access journals
2) OAK Search – project to enable access to large collections of open access materials (e.g. books, journals and other scholarly documents) without having to pass through authentication protocols – thus enabling anyone to view and use the open access information resources.
3) Discovery and identification tools that enable scholars to develop professional profiles as well as link these scholars to their professional activities as well as their scholarly works.
4) Campaigns to promote use of open access repositories both as a collection destination as well as an easily discoverable and searchable site.
5) Development of metrics that can assess the use and impact of open repositories and their scholarly resources.
(Source: Texas A&M University Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communications Initiative: Summary by Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director)
The website URL where information about open access to the institution's research is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.