On October 19, 2015, the Senate of the Urbana campus approved a university policy on Open Access to Research Articles. It was approved by the Board of Trustees on May 19, 2016. This policy grants the University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise all rights under copyright to the scholarly articles produced by faculty members.
In the policy, the faculty observed that Open Access, by providing the widest possible dissemination for research, enhances benefits to the state, region, and world while also raising the visibility and profile of the researchers at the university. Under the policy, researchers will retain copyright to their work. Work published before adoption of the policy is exempt from it. Further waiver provisions are available for specific articles upon request.
With this important new policy, the University of Illinois joins other premier research institutions, including Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of California (whose policy serves as a model for the Illinois policy) in affirming the importance of access to high-quality research without barriers to access and use. The policy is based on recommendations from the Illinois University Senates Conference (USC) to the Senates for the Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana campuses. Faculty wishing to take advantage of the OA policy can do so by depositing qualifying articles in IDEALS, the Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship.
