Open Access mandates are on the rise. This means that some institutions and funding agencies are implementing policies that require researchers to make their work available in a publicly accessible and free repository. Why are these mandates on the rise? Because in a non-open access model, taxpayers are paying to read the results of research they have already funded.

In 2008, faculty at Harvard voted 100% in favour to make their work openly accessible through the Harvard institutional repository. The University of California adopted a similar mandate in July 2013.

In Canada, many funding agencies are implementing open access policies. This fall, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Council (NSERC) will consult with researchers about a harmonized tri-agency open access policy.

The draft policy was released for comment earlier this week and is based on the CIHR policy.  The proposed policy applies to journal articles and requires researchers to publish their articles in journals that offer either immediate open access or access on the publisher’s website within 12 months of publication. A second option that doesn’t rely on publishers’ websites is proposed and will require researchers to place their peer-reviewed manuscript in an open access repository such as DalSpace.

Not sure what your agency’s policy is? Check it in Sherpa Juliet

Not sure what publishers’ requirements are? Check it in Sherpa Romeo