Whereas, the SUNY Board of Trustees mandated that all campuses develop a policy and mechanism for open access to faculty research, and
Whereas, a faculty committee has met and reported on an open access policy,
Be it resolved that the Plattsburgh Faculty Senate approves of this new policy.
We, the faculty and staff of SUNY Plattsburgh, support an Open Access policy for the college. We are committed to disseminating our scholarship and creative work, and recognize that openly sharing our work online results in a wider reach for that work, both among academic peers and the public. We recognize that the cost of scholarship for libraries and institutions, particularly that of journals published by the largest publishing companies, has become unsustainable. We acknowledge the growth of Open Educational Resource initiatives at SUNY Plattsburgh and their role in reducing student costs. We acknowledge that the adoption of an Open Access policy places further administrative burdens on Feinberg Library faculty and staff. Finally, we are responding to the SUNY Board of Trustees, which in the Campus Open Access Policies Memo of March 2018 has mandated that all campuses develop an Open Access policy.
In agreement with the SUNY Board of Trustees’ mandate, the faculty of SUNY Plattsburgh may choose to make their scholarly and creative work freely available via SOAR (SUNY Open Access Repository). Feinberg Library commits to providing services (within the constraints of available resources), including depositing scholarly articles, researching copyright and publisher policies as necessary to legally deposit those articles, and advising faculty on their rights and responsibilities in relation to publishers, including on copyright, fair use, and open access. Faculty are under no restrictions as to where they publish their work, nor are they obligated to make materials available via SOAR. This policy applies to faculty work published after the effective date of this policy. Current faculty are also welcome to submit scholarly articles published prior to the effective date of this policy if they wish to include the work within SOAR.
Definitions adapted from the Stony Brook University Open Access Policy: https://library.stonybrook.edu/openaccess/policy/
Copyright: Rights as defined by US Copyright Law (Title 17 of the United States Code). Pre-print: An author’s initially submitted manuscript of a scholarly article, prior to peer-review or acceptance.
Post-print: An author’s final revised manuscript version of a scholarly article, incorporating changes stemming from peer review. This version is sometimes known as the accepted manuscript.
License or Copyright License: A grant of rights made in accordance with Copyright Law (USC Title 17), allowing specific uses of a copyrighted work.
Open Access: The free availability of scholarly literature on the public internet, permitting users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet.
SUNY Open Access Repository (SOAR): An open access repository is a digital archive or platform designed to make articles freely available via the internet with clearly defined legal restrictions on their use or circulation. SOAR is the default repository for this policy, and is managed by SUNY’s Office of Library Services.
Scholarly Articles: Published research articles in the broadest sense of the term. A narrower term could have the effect of excluding works published in a certain format, discipline or practice. For example, the term “scholarly journal articles” might exclude those who publish in edited volumes; the term “peer-reviewed scholarly articles” might exclude law reviews which are reviewed by students or by editorial collectives.
Though this policy applies to all scholarly and creative work, it concentrates on scholarly articles. Ballooning costs in scholarly publishing are primarily attributable to price increases in journal publishing. Further, faculty often retain copyright and/or share in profits when they publish monographs or textbooks. Journal publishers, however, typically require authors to give up most or all of their rights under copyright and do not share profits with authors. In some cases, journal publishers require authors to pay author processing charges (APCs).
Though Feinberg Library welcomes all scholarly and creative works for SOAR, the library will therefore focus primarily on making available scholarly articles.
The repository is open to submissions from all faculty, and invites faculty to also submit work published by their students, with students’ written permission.
The repository will host the version closest to final publication that is allowed by the copyright holder: the published version if possible, then the post-print, then the pre-print.
In order to make the process of submission easier for faculty, Feinberg Library will partner with the Office of the Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs to use the existing system for collecting scholarship information for the Annual Activity Report. When submitting a scholarly article for the Annual Activity Report, faculty authors will have the option to ask that the article be added to SOAR. The information for those items will be shared with Feinberg Library. Librarians will contact the faculty author to obtain a copy of the article and information otherwise necessary to post the article. Feinberg Library will research copyright and publisher policies, and will deposit the article in SOAR, respecting any restrictions imposed by academic publisher licensing agreements.
For scholarly and creative works other than journal articles, faculty can contact Feinberg Library and work with librarians to determine if it is appropriate to add the materials to SOAR. For such works, Feinberg undertakes to provide training and consultation services for faculty regarding open publication, copyright, and publication rights and responsibilities, but it is the faculty member’s obligation to make the final determination on any questions.
Faculty are encouraged to approach Feinberg Library with ideas to openly publish student projects via SOAR.
Questions related to deposit of materials into SOAR should be directed to repository manager Malina Thiede (Feinberg Library): malina.thiede@plattsburgh.edu.
This policy shall be reviewed after three years by the Faculty Senate or a subcommittee of the Faculty Senate.
Approved by Plattsburgh Faculty Senate, 1 December 2020
