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Open Access at University of Washington

Information about University of Washington's Faculty Open Access Policy

On June 1, 2018, the Faculty of the University of Washington adopted an Open Access Policy intended to make their research and scholarship freely and widely available to the people of Washington and the broader research community. This policy is similar to open access policies enacted at dozens of other universities across the country and reflects University’s commitment to contribute to the public good through the widest possible sharing of its research and scholarship.

What Authors Need to Know

Under the OA Policy, Faculty grant to the University a limited, non-exclusive license enabling the UW to make their articles freely and widely available in an open access repository.  Authors retain copyright to their work until/unless they transfer it to their publisher or another third party.

The Policy provides new options for authors who wish to share their scholarly articles, but authors do not need to take any action unless they wish to share their works openly.

Faculty authors control of all decisions regarding the questions of where to publish and whether to whether to make their scholarly articles openly available.

Faculty authors may participate in the OA Policy by:

  • Depositing a copy of their accepted manuscript in one of UW’s institutional repositories
  • Depositing a copy of their accepted manuscript in a nonprofit disciplinary repository (for example, PubMed Central or arXiv), or
  • Publishing their article in an open access journal.

Authors may opt out of the Policy for a specific article by requesting a waiver.  Waivers are automatically granted upon the direction of the author.

The Policy only affects scholarly articles published after June 1, 2018.

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