The faculty open access policy functions by: 1) granting from the faculty to CWRU permission to openly disseminate faculty-authored scholarly articles; and 2) reserving rights for CWRU faculty to use and share their scholarly articles.
Open dissemination of such articles would occur using the university’s open access repository, Scholarly Commons @ CWRU, managed by the Kelvin Smith Library. Faculty in the Law School would continue to use the Scholarly Commons repository managed by the law library. The Faculty Senate Committee on University Libraries together with the CWRU Libraries are coordinating efforts with the offices of deans and academic departments, and other campus offices to ensure that the process for depositing faculty articles is as convenient for the faculty as possible. Both repositories are managed and supported by the libraries to ensure long-term access to and preservation of CWRU-produced scholarly content.
Individual faculty members are not mandated to do anything, comply with anything, or take any action if they choose not to. Rather, by virtue of its adoption by the Faculty Senate, the policy functions automatically by shifting the default environment from one in which faculty frequently sign away copyrights to their scholarship to one that ensures that faculty and CWRU retain rights to freely share CWRU-authored scholarship. Faculty members, if they wish, could assist in the implementation of such a policy by submitting their articles to the repository, but would not be required to do so.
Because a CWRU Faculty Open Access policy was approved by the Faculty Senate, it only apples to university faculty. Other publishing authors on campus who are not represented by the Faculty Senate could individually grant CWRU permission to openly share their articles but would not be governed by a faculty policy.
Other publishing authors on campus who are not represented by the Faculty Senate are encouraged to contact the CWRU Libraries to determine open access pathways for their works.
The policy applies to “scholarly articles,” “research publications” as defined broadly in the CWRU Faculty Handbook, which typically, but not exclusively, include peer-reviewed articles based on original research submitted to journals or conference proceedings, and that faculty contribute to the world to advance inquiry and knowledge, and without expectation of payment. “Scholarly articles” may encompass, in addition to journal articles, book chapters, essays in edited volumes, reports, or other scholarly works that are not otherwise published on a royalty-generating basis.
The policy applies to the “author’s final manuscript” version of the article, which is the final version of the author’s manuscript that incorporates any changes made as a result of the peer-review process, but prior to publisher’s copy-editing or formatting.
Whenever possible as rights permit, efforts would be made to deposit the version of record of an article, which is the final published version as it appears in publication.
Many written products are not encompassed under this specific notion of scholarly article, such as books, popular articles, commissioned articles, fiction and poetry, encyclopedia entries, ephemeral writings, lecture notes, lecture videos, or other copyrighted works. While a Faculty Open Access Policy is not meant to address these kinds of works, individual faculty members are encouraged to consult with the CWRU Libraries to determine open access pathways for such works not covered under the policy.
The policy does not apply retroactively to articles written prior to the adoption of the policy (March 25, 2024). The policy only applies to articles which the faculty member entered into a publication agreement after March 25, 2024. It does not apply to articles written by faculty after leaving CWRU.
No. The Faculty OA Policy only gives CWRU permission to disseminate your articles and ensure that you retain certain rights as an author to use your own scholarship. Consistent with the university’s policies on academic freedom, faculty would be free to publish in the venues of their choosing.
It is always good practice to be transparent with your publisher. However, publishers should be aware of this policy as it has been publicly announced and is publicly available on our website. When working with a publisher, faculty can inform the publisher of the CWRU Open Access Policy and use the following statement with their submission if they wish:
“CWRU has implemented an open access policy through it’s faculty senate. With the implementation of this policy, each CWRU faculty member grants to Case Western Reserve University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of their scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same.”
No. The Faculty OA Policy grants specific nonexclusive permissions to CWRU to disseminate the article. Consistent with the university’s Faculty Handbook and Intellectual Property Policy, faculty still retain ownership and complete control of the copyright in their writings, subject only to this prior permission. Faculty can still exercise their copyrights in any way they see fit, including transferring them to a publisher if desired. However, CWRU will still retain its license and the right to distribute the article from its repositories, unless a waiver for the policy is obtained.
Note on scholarly articles and “works made for hire:” Under copyright law, “works made for hire” refers to works created by individuals within the scope of their employment, and as such, are the intellectual property of the employer, not the individual employee. The question of whether faculty’s scholarly works constitute “works made for hire” is not legally settled, with considerable tension existing between the Copyright Act’s definition of “works made for hire” and the intellectual property policies of U.S. research universities, most of which respect the well-established academic norm that faculty ought to own the rights to their own scholarly work. Like the policies at most U.S. research universities, the Faculty Handbook and Intellectual Property Policy do not consider the scholarly works of faculty to be “works made for hire.” The Faculty Open Access Policy proposed in this document is in alignment with the Faculty Handbook and IP Policy and asserts that faculty own the copyrights to their scholarly works.
No, the Faculty OA Policy does not put you in legal jeopardy if you sign a publication contract. Because of the way such policies are intended to function under U.S. copyright law and the intellectual property policies of universities, the policy constitutes a “pre-existing license” between CWRU faculty and the university, and such a pre-existing license should have force over any subsequent agreement between a CWRU faculty member and a publisher.
Additionally, the CWRU Libraries and FSCUL are working to identify a list of publishers (based on an analysis of the publication output of CWRU faculty) to inform that such the Faculty OA Policy had been passed, and that, as a result, CWRU retains the rights to use the author’s final versions of their scholarly works.
Some publishers require faculty at OA policy institutions to obtain a waiver from the policy in order to publish the article. If a faculty member wishes to publish an article with such a publisher, they may obtain a waiver for that specific article. Contact scholarlycomm@case.edu for waiver information.
Yes. Each joint author of an article holds copyright in the article and, individually, has the authority to exercise the copyright. Joint authors are those who participate in the preparation of the article with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of the whole. Under U.S. copyright law, any joint author can give nonexclusive permission to copy and distribute the work. Best practices would include treating open access policy participation like other co-authorship issues – determining author order, reporting contributions, etc. – and, hence, discussing the issue among co-authors as part of the writing and publication process.
If your article is openly available at the publisher’s website, or you’ve added it to a repository like PubMed Central or SSRN, just give us the link. Either email the link to scholarlycomm@case.edu or, if using the online submission form, select "Link out to file on remote site" and enter the link when asked to upload the file.
Scholarly Commons staff will add any additional article information (authors, publication info, etc.) and upload your article to the repository.
Portions of this FAQ were adapted from: