University of California adopts OA policy

The Academic Senate of the University of California has passed an open-access policy, which aims to ensure that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge.

Articles will be available to the public without charge via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository) in tandem with their publication in scholarly journals. The adoption of the policy. which covers more than 8,000 UC faculty at all 10 campuses of the University of California, and as many as 40,000 publications a year, came after a six-year process, including two years of formal review and revision.

Chris Kelty, associate professor of information studies, UCLA, and chair of the UC University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), said, 'This policy will cover more faculty and more research than ever before, and it sends a powerful message that faculty want open access and they want it on terms that benefit the public and the future of research.'