Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 71.94
Liaison Nathan King
Submission Date Dec. 19, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Virginia Tech
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 2.00 Julie Griffin
Associate Dean for Research and Informatics
University Libraries
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

How many of the institution’s research-producing divisions are covered by a published open access policy that ensures that versions of future scholarly articles by faculty and staff are deposited in a designated open access repository? (All, Some or None):
Some

Which of the following best describes the open access policy? (Mandatory or Voluntary):
Mandatory (or mandatory with a waiver option)

Does the institution provide financial incentives to support faculty members with article processing and other open access publication charges?:
Yes

A brief description of the open access policy, including the date adopted, any incentives or supports provided, and the repository(ies) used:

University Libraries is the only division of Virginia Tech covered by an article-based open access policy, which was adopted by the Library Faculty Association on August 1, 2013. The policy mandates deposit of peer-reviewed articles in Virginia Tech’s institutional repository, VTechWorks https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu. The policy is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/23893

A working group established by the Commission on Research in Fall 2016 created draft University open access policy language; the language was presented to Faculty Senate and the Commission on Faculty Affairs in Spring 2017.

Virginia Tech was also the first university to mandate open access electronic theses and dissertations in 1997.

University Libraries offers faculty, staff, and students a $150,000 Open Access Subvention Fund to subsidize the article processing charges for articles published in scholarly, peer-reviewed open access journals. Authors are eligible to receive up to $1,500 per article and $3,000 per year. Recipients of the funds are encouraged to deposit a copy of their work in VTechWorks.

To reduce barriers to repository deposit, members of the University community may deposit publications directly through the VTechWorks user interface and through the University’s Electronic Faculty Activity Reporting System (EFARS).

In addition to providing an open access institutional repository platform and open access subvention fund, the University supports open access to research through the provision of an open access support ecosystem that includes:

VTechData (a repository for open publishing of research datasets)
CollabVT (VIVO public researcher profiles based on faculty curated EFARS data)
Virginia Tech Publishing Services (services for faculty, staff, and students interested in publishing open access conference proceedings or scholarly journals)
Open Access Monograph Publishing Fund ($15,000 per work)
Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant Program ($3,000 per project)
Overleaf Pro accounts, (a collaborative authoring tool that supports deposit in other open access repositories)
ORCID (persistent researcher identifiers connecting research with VT researchers)
Open Science Framework portal, (a project documentation and collaboration platform that supports open publishing of research outputs)
Open Access workshops offered through the University’s Networked Learning Institute
Public programs such as Open Education Week, Open Data Week, and Virginia Tech’s celebration of the annual international Open Access Week event
Research guides on open topics such as Open Access, Publically Accessible/Open Access Materials, and Finding Data.


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

The institution's open access policy:

Library Faculty Association Open Access Policy Approved August 1, 2013

The Faculty of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech is committed to disseminating its scholarly work as widely as possible. In addition to the public benefit of such dissemination, we aim to promote greater reach and impact for our work, simplify retention of distribution rights, and aid preservation. In keeping with this commitment, the faculty adopts the following policy.

Each faculty member grants to Virginia Tech permission to make available his or her peer reviewed journal articles. In legal terms, each faculty member grants to Virginia Tech a nonexclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her peer-reviewed journal articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do so, provided that the articles are not sold.
The faculty author retains copyright unless that author chooses to transfer the copyright.

This policy applies to all peer-reviewed journal articles authored or co-authored while the person is a University Libraries faculty member except for any completed before the adoption of this policy and any for which the faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.

Each faculty member shall provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version of each article to the institutional repository no later than the date of its publication. The faculty author may then control the level of access to each article.

Each faculty member further endeavors to provide an electronic copy of other scholarly works for dissemination and preservation, including but not limited to presentations, posters, conference proceedings, and book chapters; to publish in open access journals whenever possible; and where permitted, to contribute peer-reviewed journal articles completed before implementation of this policy.

The Faculty Affairs Committee shall be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the faculty from time to time. The policy shall be reviewed after one year and a report presented to the faculty


The website URL where the open access repository is available:
Estimated percentage of scholarly articles published annually by the institution’s faculty and staff that are deposited in a designated open access repository (0-100):
---

A brief description of how the institution’s library(ies) support open access to research:

For more information about these and other Open Access Services, please visit: https://www.lib.vt.edu/research-learning/publishing-scholarly-communication.html

Open Access contact information: Philip Young pyoung1@vt.edu

Virginia Tech’s Open Access LibGuide: http://guides.lib.vt.edu/oa


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
---

Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

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.