FAQ

General

Who is an Institute author?

Individuals employed by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who produce scholarly articles during their employment, are termed “authors.”

What is an open access repository?

A repository is a hosted collection of publications in digital format that features the scholarly output of the institution’s authors. It is open access, meaning material can be found, read and downloaded by anyone with an internet connection. Repositories are indexed by search engines and databases (such as Google Scholar), which will link to the downloadable version of a deposited article.

What is the goal of an open access repository?

There are many goals, including making research available to all interested parties regardless of institutional affiliation or economic privilege, highlighting the research produced by Institute authors, and making it easier for authors to share their individual research with interested readers. It serves to facilitate the global distribution of knowledge per the Middlebury mission.

Are there precedents for such policies at other institutions?

More than 50 American colleges and universities have adopted similar policies, including major research universities, including Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Duke, and Emory, and peer liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst, Wellesley, Oberlin, and Bryn Mawr.

What will the institutional repository look like?

Examples of existing repositories:

• https://dash.harvard.edu/
• https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/
• http://escholarship.org/
• http://repository.wellesley.edu/
• https://open.library.emory.edu/
• http://repository.brynmawr.edu/

What is included in “scholarly articles” to be included in Open Access publications?

They include scholarly work regardless of the medium/format of the work, in paper or in digital form, traditional (printed) or online articles.

Author’s Rights

Do authors lose their rights to their writing, or grant ownership to the Institute?

The policy grants Middlebury nonexclusive transferable rights to a publication, which both allows the Institute to deposit an article in its repository and to transfer such rights back to the author. This policy actually grants authors more rights than a standard publication contract that grants a publisher exclusive non-transferable rights to articles.

Won’t such a policy make it possible for other researchers to “scoop” authors’ research?

The policy only requires authors to deposit their published works, so the ideas would already be public and tied to a researcher. If your research describes a patentable discovery, you may wish to secure a patent before publishing or depositing.

To make the policy legal, do I have to collect actual signatures from authors, or is it enough to simply have the language in the handbook?

Individually signed affirmation of the policy carry greater legal weight and offer more protection to the Institute.

Submissions

What kinds of materials would be covered by the open access policy?

The policy would apply to scholarly articles that describe the fruits of authors’ research given to the world for the sake of inquiry and knowledge without expectation of payment, including most scholarly journal articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters. It would not cover creative works, books, commissioned articles, or other publications where authors are compensated directly for their writing.

Will this policy require authors to publish in open access journals?

Not at all. Authors retain their current freedom to publish in any journal that accepts their work. This policy allows all articles to get the benefits of open access regardless of the published format, leading to increased distribution and global circulation of knowledge.

Are authors required to submit their articles in the repository?

By approving the open access policy, all authors agree to deposit their future scholarly articles to the institutional repository. However, one may wish to opt out of the license for particular publications. In these cases, Institute authors would fill out an online waiver request, which would be automatically granted.

How do waivers work?

Waivers can be requested on a per-article basis through an online form. Waivers will be given automatically and without question. You can request a waiver at any time for any reason.

Why are you proposing that this be opt out, and how will it be enforced?

The model proposed here, where articles are put in the repository unless an author requests a waiver, underscores the idea that the authors embrace the spirit and intent of OpenAccess by making accessibility and democratized scholarship the default. Enforcement is not a goal of the policy; the policy explicitly states that obtaining waivers or failing to submit an article will have no effect on authors’ reviews or salary increases.

Can we go back and get permissions for already published materials?

While the policy would not require you to deposit previously published work, you are welcome to do so if you get the permission of the relevant rights holder.

While the policy would not require authors to deposit their books into the repository, would the repository be able to store articles, books, or book chapters if authors chose to deposit them?

Yes. Any digitized or digital work may be added to the repository, as long as it has permission from the relevant rightsholder.

How do multi-author works work?

Multi-authored works are expected to be deposited if one of the authors is an Institute author. You need to let the other authors know that this work will be submitted. If other authors object, you can submit a waiver to opt out for that article. Verify that you are the copyright holding author. If you don’t own the copyright, you cannot grant the repository the license.

What if a coauthor is submitting the article to their institution’s own repository?

This is fine because it is a nonexclusive license. Other open access journals may publish the same article but this will not affect the article reposited with our OpenAccess repository.

Would materials created for edited volumes be covered by this policy?

The policy would not apply. But if you got appropriate permissions from stakeholders, chapters of edited volumes could be submitted.

Would the policy cover books, including coauthored books?

The policy does not cover single or coauthored books, but Institute authors would have the right to request permissions from publishers. Most publishers would not grant these permissions however. Technically that would be possible but it isn’t covered by the policy.

**What if the author has already deposited an article in another repository, such as PubMed?

This will not be a problem. We would like copies of all scholarly articles to be able to highlight the breadth and quality of Middlebury authors’ research; multiple deposits also increase the chance of your article being found by readers, and increase the chances of long-term preservation.

Will the repository also be a place to store materials other than articles?

While the proposed OpenAccess Policy applies to articles published by Institute authors, we will design the repository so that it can contain a wide array of materials. We will make it clear through the design of the repository which of the materials are peer-reviewed.

In addition to peer-reviewed articles, can authors deposit previously unpublished work or papers that have not been peer reviewed in the repository?

The repository can include any author’s work that they have the right to republish, whether otherwise published or not. The repository metadata will indicate whether the article has been published, peer reviewed, presented, or otherwise contextualized. Some fields actually encourage prepublication deposits in disciplinary archives, and Middlebury’s repository can be used this way as well. An interface could be created that goes to only peer-review articles. You, or any user, could hide everything that is not peer-reviewed when searching in the depository if you so desire. If you upload a conference presentation you would need to ensure that you own the copyright to all of the images located within it.

Is there any case in which you might submit a manuscript to the repository for archival purposes, but it is not accessible to the general public? (i.e., a “dark copy”)

Yes, you can place your manuscript in the OpenAccess repository just for archival purposes and now have it appear and accessible to the public. Subsequently, you may decide to “publish” it in OpenAccess.

Interacting with Publishers

How do institutional repositories affect the traditional publishing model?

It already is the norm at Harvard, MIT, and many other research universities. There has been no push-back from journal publishers.

What is an embargo, and how does it work?

An embargo, normally imposed by the publisher, is a period of time following publication in which a work is made available exclusively to paying customers. This can be negotiated with the publisher, although many do not require any embargo periods. The default is for no embargo period.

Submission Process

How will articles be submitted to the institutional repository?

The repository would have a self-service function that would allow for authors to upload materials directly to the repository. We will also likely provide as a service the ability for authors to email their articles to a librarian, who would then upload the article to the repository.

What version of an article should I submit to the repository?

The policy reserves for the Institute the right to host the author approved manuscript, which is the copy that has been accepted by editorial review but not yet copyedited and typeset by the publisher. A pdf version is preferable.

Which version of the manuscript should be submitted?

The policy reserves the right for the Institute to host the author approved manuscript, which is the copy that has been accepted by editorial review but not yet copyedited and typeset by the publisher. This means that the format won’t look like an exact reprint of the article. However, the published version could also be deposited if the author has the right to do so or has permission from the publisher. The submitted manuscript should be the last copy that you send to the publisher before they take it and put it into whatever software they use to publish it. It can still adhere to the style sheet of the journals, but it is the manuscript before the proofed galleys. Often a publisher asks the author to submit tables and figures either at the end of the manuscript or as a separate file and indicate where they should appear in the published article. For the version you deposit with OpenAccess you should manually put such tables and figures back into the document, either in-text or at the end of the article, in the latter case indicating their proper placement in-text. You could upload supporting documents that accompany the text (e.g., audio and video) into the repository as well, as long as you own the copyright.

What file format should the manuscripts be submitted in?

PDF is the preferred file format, in order to preserve fonts and formatting.

How do we handle articles that contain materials that can’t be made available via open access?

For articles that contain copyrighted materials (e.g., images), you will likely need to seek permission from the copyright holder to include those materials in the version of the article that you place in the repository, unless you feel that it can be used under the fair use exemption.

What is the relative timing of the manuscript being available via the repository versus being published?

This would depend on whether the publishers want there to be an embargo on the article, so that the article won’t be made available in OpenAccess until a certain time has passed within which readers will only be able to access it via the journal itself. In cases where the publisher requests no embargo, the file will be added to the repository soon after it is submitted by the authors.

After Submission

How will we evaluate the success of this and measure its impact?

We will keep track of downloads and citations for articles in the repository. Many people at other institutions with repositories appreciate being able to see download statistics for their articles.

Can I withdraw something if I change my mind?

Yes. You can at any time decide to make your article unavailable by requesting a waiver.

How will this policy impact peer review?

There would be no impact, as the standard peer review policies for whatever venue publishes the article would be followed. The repository simply hosts pre-prints and copies of already published works, and is not involved in the peer-review process. Peer review happens elsewhere.

What happens when an author leaves the institution?

Work already in the repository will remain so unless you request its withdrawal. Work published after you leave the institution is no longer under the scope of the policy.

If I have an article in a repository, how does it get cited? How do I count total citations if citations are split between the published version and the version in the repository?

Citations can link to the repository copy similarly to any online database, and the deposited version will include all of the citation information for the original publication, which will remain the official citation information. Research suggests that open access articles have higher citation rates. The total citation count of an article may vary depending on who is calculating them. For example, Google Scholar tries to collapse citation counts for different versions of a work, whereas other tools may treat different versions separately.

Grants and Funding

Will having a repository change the process of applying for publication funds?

No. The process for applying for reprints and subvention funds will remain the same.

How would open access repository impact funds available for publishing in open access journals?

The existence of a repository does not affect funds available for publishing in open access journals in any way.

What advantage could OpenAccess give me in securing future grant funding?

Many granting agencies require distribution/dissemination plans as part of the grant proposal. While indicating you plan to deposit an article resulting from a project for which you are seeking funding in OpenAccess may be unlikely to determine the outcome of your proposal, it is likely to be viewed favorably by the proposal reviewer(s).