Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 79.54
Liaison Kelli O'Day
Submission Date June 20, 2023

STARS v2.2

University of California, Davis
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Kelli O'Day
Assessment Program Manager
Office of Sustainability
"---" 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:
From the University of California (UC) Office of Scholarly Communication’s web site on open access at the UC: “The eScholarship repository and publishing platform enables the UC academic community to post previously published works; distribute pre-prints, working papers, theses and dissertations; and publish new materials such as books, journals, and conference proceedings. … UC authors are covered by the UC Open Access Policies. These policies allow authors to post scholarly articles in eScholarship or another repository regardless of the terms of their publishing agreement, as long as the agreement was signed after the adoption of the policy.” The site describes other subject repositories as well.

Access eScholarship at: http://www.escholarship.org/

Information above sourced from: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access/; and accessed on May 17th, 2023.

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?:
Yes

A copy of the institution's open access policy:
The institution's open access policy:
The Academic Senate of the University of California adopted an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013, ensuring that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge.

On October 23, 2015, a Presidential Open Access Policy expanded open access rights and responsibilities to all other authors who write scholarly articles while employed at UC, including non-senate researchers, lecturers, post-doctoral scholars, administrative staff, librarians, and graduate students.

Publishers may request that UC authors obtain a waiver or embargo. UC Office of Scholarly Communication’s FAQ notes that waivers are rare.

Academic Senate Open Access Policy: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/scholarly-publishing/uc-open-access-policies-background/systemwide-senate/

Presidential Open Access Policy: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/scholarly-publishing/uc-open-access-policies-background/presidential/

Participate in the UC open access policies: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access-policy/

“What are waivers and embargoes?” https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access-policy/policy-faq/

Does the policy cover the entire institution? :
Yes

Does the institution provide an open access article processing charge (APC) fund for employees?:
Yes

A brief description of the open access APC fund:
UC Davis is one of three of the 10 UC campuses to administer a campus-specific open access fund to provide financial support to faculty and researchers. The two funds offered by UC Davis are the UC Davis Open Access Fund and the TOME Open Access Monograph Fund.

The UC Davis Open Access Fund is a library reimbursement program that supports members of the UC Davis academic community who want to make their journal articles or book chapters free to all readers immediately upon publication. Any author with a UC Davis affiliation is eligible for the fund (faculty, graduate students, residents, staff, etc.) The fund will reimburse authors up to $1,000 per article for open access article processing charges (APCs), or for fees paid to publish open access book chapters.
UC Davis Open Access Fund: https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/guide/open-access-fund/


The TOME Open Access Monograph Fund is a five-year pilot to fund author fees of up to $15,000 for publishing open-access monographs. The effort is part of a national initiative, TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), that is supported by a wide variety of institutions, libraries, and university presses and designed to help build a thriving ecosystem of high-quality, peer-reviewed, and freely accessible scholarly books.
TOME Open Access Monograph Fund: https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/guide/tome-fund/


Additionally, in March 2021 the University of California announced a four-year open access agreement with Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, which went into effect on April 1, 2021. Through the agreement, the UC libraries provide funding to cover open access publishing fees for UC authors who publish in Elsevier journals by redirecting funds previously devoted to subscription fees. As of September 1, 2022, this financial support will also be available to UC corresponding authors publishing in Cell Press and The Lancet titles.
More information is available at: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/publishing-discounts/elsevier-oa-agreement/


In June 2022, the University of California announced a similar open access agreement with SAGE Publishing, another of the world’s largest academic publishers. The three-year agreement lasts retroactively from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2024. Under the agreement, UC libraries will pay the first $1000 of the article processing charge (APC) for UC authors. Authors who do not have research funds available to pay the rest can request full funding for the APC. UC authors also receive a 20% discount on the APC when publishing in SAGE hybrid journals and a 15% discount when publishing in SAGE fully open access journals.

Additional UC-wide information can be accessed at:
https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access-publishing-at-uc/oa-publishing-funds/.

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?:
Yes

A brief description of the open access journal hosting services:
eScholarship Publishing is an open access publishing platform supported by the University of California, managed by the California Digital Library, and offered free of charge to UC-affiliated departments, research units, publishing programs and individual scholars. eScholarship offers publishing and production tools, including a full editorial and peer review system, as well as professional support and consulting services. Through eScholarship University of California, the 10 UC campuses, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the UC Office of the President host a combined 92 open access journals, as of December 12, 2022. UC Davis currently hosts 6 of the open access journals.

Access at: https://escholarship.org/journals

Estimated percentage of peer-reviewed scholarly works published annually by the institution’s employees that are deposited in a designated open access repository:
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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:
UC Davis offers resources for open access support, in addition to being one of the campuses offering access to publishing funds. The UC Davis Library team maintains a dedicated support team to answer questions for campus scholars and employees.

The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication offers an extensive set of resources for open access support; information can be found at:
https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access-publishing-at-uc/.
Additional information is available at: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/open-access-policy/policy-faq/.

On March 25, 2020, a systemwide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations went into effect, indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (“embargo”) obtained by the student.”

More information is available at: https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-authors/dissertations-theses/

Cora Ballek, student employee at the UC Davis Sustainability office, assisted in compiling this credit response.

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.