UND OA Statement of Support
Background
The University of North Dakota (UND) launched its online institutional repository, known as the UND Scholarly Commons (hereinafter called the Commons) in September 2017. It is managed by the Chester Fritz Library (CFL). The Library, while encouraging the UND community to deposit a wide variety of materials in the Commons, conducted extensive outreach and education on institutional repositories (such as the Commons), copyright, Open Access, the Open Access policies of major granting agencies, and related topics. The results indicate substantial success: as of August 20, 2018, the Commons contains 12,698 items, including everything from research papers, poster presentations, art inventory items, historical photos, research data sets, and much more, in all formats, including images, audio, video, text, data, etc. These items have been downloaded a total of 9,536 times by users worldwide. However, UND has never had any official statement, resolution, or policy regarding Open Access.
An Open Access Statement of Support aligns with our Strategic Plan, under the Core Values of:
- Community – A spirit of collaboration and connectedness across the University and beyond
- Discovery – An enthusiasm for inquiry, creativity, and innovation
- Liberal Arts – An educational foundation essential for living an intellectually curious, personally fulfilling, and socially responsible life
- Lifelong Learning – A passion for learning, civic engagement, and community leadership
It would also support Diversity and Inclusivity by making our research available to all, regardless of ability to pay or location.
An Open Access Statement of Support would also align with OneUND under our Goals of Learning, Discovery, and Engagement. Our explicitly stated goal of enhancing discovery at a level consistent with the most research-intensive universities (Carnegie R1) is particularly facilitated by encouraging faculty to deposit their materials and share them openly and globally).
Most faculty works of authorship are subject to the intellectual property policies of UND and the State Board of Higher Education, which vest ownership of copyright in the author but reserve to UND certain, limited use rights.1 The Commons, and the voluntary deposit process, will help ensure a meaningful and appropriate way for UND to exercise those rights while permitting authors to highlight or earmark certain works for inclusion.
At present, we recommend offering a Statement of Support and a formally supported "opt in" policy, in the form of an Open Access Resolution, to be presented to the University Senate and all other appropriate bodies. This is a vital first step in the promotion of Open Access in routine operations – a goal adopted and supported by most Carnegie R1 institutions, and clearly supported by major federal (and many state) granting agencies.
Statement of Support
The University of North Dakota (UND) is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the University adopts the following policy:
The Libraries of UND will make available the scholarly research (including articles, data sets, supporting material, and related materials) of the UND community, including faculty, non-faculty researchers, staff, and others, and high-level student research (theses, dissertations, posters presented at professional conferences, etc.). Faculty and other community members will be encouraged to deposit such works with the Libraries, for uploading, metadata tagging, and permanent preservation in the Commons. Faculty and other community members who deposit materials not already subject to the intellectual property policies of UND and the State Board of Higher Education will in concert with the Commons deposit grant to UND a nonexclusive, noncommercial, irrevocable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, and distribute these materials or portions thereof, in any medium, solely for the purpose of maintaining and operating the Commons. The policy applies to all scholarly articles and research materials authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the UND faculty, staff, or student body except for any articles or other materials completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles or other materials for which the Faculty member or other UND community member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement. The Dean of Libraries or the Provost will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time upon express direction by the author/co-author.
Each author/co-author will be strongly encouraged to provide, at no charge, an electronic copy of the author’s/co-author’s final version of each article/item (frequently known as a "pre-print") to the Libraries in an appropriate format; we recommend this article be provided as soon as possible after publication, and within 30 days would be ideal, to maximize interest from other researchers. UND may make the article available in its Open Access repository (currently the Commons). The Office of the Provost and/or the Libraries will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its application, and recommending changes to the University Senate from time to time. This policy will be reviewed after 3 years and a report presented to the University Senate.
Frequently Asked Questions
This FAQ accompanies the OA Draft Statement of Support (proposed and passed by the University Senate Library Committee in May 2018, and passed by Senate Executive on 9/19/18), to address concerns and to provide information on the benefits of depositing research in the UND Scholarly Commons.
No, for several reasons. First, we usually deposit accepted manuscripts (author’s copies, prior to publisher formatting) on the Commons. Most publishers allow deposit of author accepted manuscripts into non-profit institutional or disciplinary repositories (such as the Commons or arXiv). The library’s curation of our repository includes a rights checking service. Our staff is well versed in copyright and we confirm if and how a publisher permits sharing of work written for them before placing it on the Commons. In the unlikely scenario that a publisher did dispute our right to share your work, we would simply remove it.
Absolutely! Your research will be globally available. Open research is more heavily cited;an article in arXiv.orgcites the advantage in research impact of OA journal articles as 36%-172% depending on the discipline. Authors who deposit work in the Commons get monthly research impact updates with maps showing where work was downloaded.
We also have a CV review service: submit your CV to Zeineb Yousif, Digital Initiatives Librarian, and she’ll review your publication history and let you know what we can upload to increase your research impact! The Commons is also integrated with Faculty Success (formerly known as Digital Measures. When entering your intellectual contributions you will have the option to check a box if you’d like your work shared on the Commons. If you check it, we’ll investigate any possible copyright issues and work with you to ensure anything that can be made available is uploaded.
Yes. In fact, having an institutional unit mandated to gather research, like a Library, is preferred by most agencies. For example, say Professor Smith promises to keep his research on a website, then gets a great job in Japan. The website he maintains may go defunct as he changes institutions. However, if Professor Smith says "I'll deposit my research with the Library" and the Library asserts an institutional commitment to make it permanently available, including ongoing file conversion so it’s never unreadable, this is more favorably regarded. We are also to offer better preservation services. Recently, a UND professor wrote an NSF grant. The Library committed to placing research on the Commons, permanently retaining it, backing it up, and making it accessible using metadata schema. NSF asked for more details on metadata, which we provided. The grant was successful.
We can help here too! The library offers several data management related services.
Check our Data Management guide or contact Zeineb Yousif , Digital Initiatives Librarian, for a consultation if you need assistance in writing
a data management plan or finding a place to store a dataset. For assistance with
metadata you can contact one of our metadata librarians: Shelby Harken, Shannon Nonte, or Drew Lewis.
(This Statement of Support has been partially adapted from Boston University Open Access Policy 2017.)