UVic Libraries - OA Statement of Commitment

The University of Victoria Libraries and our librarians, archivists, and staff are committed to open access scholarship and ensuring barrier-free access to scholarly content to the broadest possible community to increase its visibility, usage, and impact. These goals are consistent with the principles articulated in the original Budapest Open Access Initiative from 2002, and the University of Victoria’s strategic principles: operating with excellence, contributing to change, upholding Indigenous ways of knowing, creating a welcoming space, making room for risk taking, honouring lifelong learning, lifting each other up, and adding value when we join others.1

Open Access Statement

We commit to share any outputs of our scholarship as openly as possible and in a manner consistent with copyright agreements, legislation, and requirements by funding agencies. To accomplish this, we commit to the following strategies:

  • Deposit outputs of our scholarship in institutional and/or subject-specific repositories.
  • Publish our work in open access journals, edited volumes, or monographs, including new and emerging open access venues/channels.
  • Advocate in our work as editors, reviewers, and authors for open scholarship.
  • Encourage and support UVic scholars to make their research openly accessible.

Collaborate in the development of a sustainable open access scholarly publishing system.

Scope

This open access statement applies to all scholarly and professional work, regardless of format, as of the adoption date. However, retrospective deposit is also encouraged. Examples of works include:

  • Articles
  • Books and book chapters
  • Conference papers, posters, proceedings, and presentations (including presentation slides and text, images, videos, and handouts, etc.)
  • Other scholarly outputs appropriate to the discipline, including but not limited to protocols, research data, source code, working papers, policy documents, annual or study leave reports, etc.

Works should be deposited in UVicSpace, UVic Dataverse Collection, or a trusted open access disciplinary archive as soon as possible, recognizing that some publishers may impose an embargo period. Co-authored works should be included with the permission of the other author(s).

Exceptions to this statement are outlined in the Copyright, Privacy, and Cultural Considerations section.

Copyright, Privacy, and Cultural Considerations

This Commitment respects the University of Victoria’s Intellectual Property Policy2, which governs copyright ownership and use of works created at UVic.

This Commitment also affirms the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ (CARL) ‘Freedom of Expression and Inclusive Libraries3 which states that “[e]nabling students, faculty, and researchers to discover, explore, create, preserve, and disseminate knowledge is central to the mission of academic and research libraries.” We recognize that not all scholarly outputs are appropriate to be shared openly, for example, proprietary information, information protected by B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA)4, or other sensitive information that must be safeguarded against unwarranted access or disclosure.

We also acknowledge and respect that open dissemination may be at odds with sovereignty of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit to control their information and data, as expressed in principles like OCAP®5 (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession), and upheld through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)6 and the B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.7 The rights of Indigenous peoples to control how their scholarly outputs are shared is not in opposition to our commitment to open access, as expressed in this document.

History and Review

The intent of this revised statement adopted is to update the language of our previously approved 2012 Statement of Commitment.

This statement of commitment comes into effect February 20, 2024 and relates to all applicable works published after this date. This statement was approved by members of the Libraries Council on February 20, 2024. The Statement will be reviewed every five years.

Acknowledgement

Revisions to the 2012 Statement of Commitment was inspired by the statements and policies at McGill University Library, University of Saskatchewan Library, and the Toronto Metropolitan University Library, as well as the CARL Institutional Open Access Policy Toolkit. This policy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Deposit

Submit the finalized text of scholarly outputs in a timely manner to UVicSpace as outlined in the instructions. The Scholarly Communications librarian or designate will review and manage version requirements, attribution requirements and embargo period required by the publishers.

To deposit data sets in the UVic Dataverse Collection, please contact a specific expert listed in the Research Data Service library guide8 to answer your questions. Please consider privacy and research ethics concerns when depositing to cloud-based data repositories. Consult the library guide for more information.

Definitions

Open Access Publications that can be freely read on the Internet. Readers can download, copy, and distribute an Open Access publication for non-commercial research and teaching purposes as long as attribution is given to the authors. Sometimes this material is published under a Creative Commons license, but not always.
Post-print Many journals allow us to upload a post-print (after peer review) version of an article to be posted in an institutional repository under certain conditions (for example there may be specific attribution or embargos requirements). The post-print version is the final version prior to typesetting. You can check if the journal you are planning to publish in allows the posting of post-prints by checking the database Sherpa/Romeo.
“Green” open access publishing Green open access refers to the accepted manuscript version of your paper (i.e., after post-review and corrections have been made). This version does not include any publisher branding and can be archived in UVicSpace. Most publishers permit this use, though some impose an embargo period.
Institutional repository An online collection of scholarship by an institution’s scholars. Institutional repositories both preserve the intellectual output and allow for wide distribution. UVic’s institutional repository is UVicSpace. Institutional repositories are also called research repositories.9
Subject repository An online collection of publications in a particular subject area. The repository collects, preserves, and provides open access to the publication. Examples include arXiv, RePEc, and PubMed Central. Subject repositories are also called disciplinary repositories.
Data repository A data repository for researchers allows you to archive and/or share data. At UVic our data repository is Dataverse.10
Author Addendum

A legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s copyright transfer agreement and allows you to keep the rights to your article(s). E.g., Canadian Author Addendum to Publication Agreement.11

[1] Distinctly UVic: A strategy for the University of Victoria 2023 forward. https://perma.cc/PT44-UDNU

[2] University of Victoria. Intellectual Property. University Policy GV0215. https://perma.cc/K3CU-J5DN

[3] Canadian Association of Research Libraries. (2022, April). Freedom of expression and inclusive libraries. https://perma.cc/ZN6E-M9YE

[4] Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSBC 1996, c. 165. https://perma.cc/QE4E-ZP7K

[5] First Nations Information Governance Centre. (n.d.). The First Nations principles of OCAP®. https://perma.cc/NLB4-MZDQ

[6] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. General Assembly, 61st Session, Supplement No. 53 (A/61/53), part one, c 2, s. A. https://perma.cc/3VUQ-MXEB

[7] Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, SBC 2019, c 44. https://perma.cc/8Z3V-R28X

[8] UVic Libraries. (n.d.). Research Data Services. https://perma.cc/7Q85-RDRJ

[9] University of Victoria. UVicSpace: UVic’s research and learning repository. https://perma.cc/8RKT-6F8R

[10] University of Victoria Dataverse Collection. https://perma.cc/GUS3-RF93

[11] Canadian Association of Research Libraries. (2019, May). Canadian author addendum to publication agreement. https://perma.cc/PPP9-MB58