DISSEMINATING FACULTY RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
OU-Norman’s Open Access Policy allows faculty to legally share their scholarly articles, making them available for anyone to read.
The policy was adopted by the OU-Norman Faculty Senate on May 8, 2023 and approved by the Senior Vice President and Provost on August 15, 2023.
Policy implementation is ongoing. Please continue to check here for updates.
What the policy IS
The policy ensures faculty can share their scholarly articles
What the policy ISN'T
The policy does not require faculty to share their work, transfer their copyright, or publish in specific journals
What the policy DOES
The policy enables faculty to share the final accepted version or OA version of their scholarly articles; upon request, faculty may receive an automatic waiver from the policy for individual articles
Learn about the policy
How to participate in the Policy? Add the OU Publication Agreement Addendum to your publisher’s agreement! It enables you to retain the right to use your work in the course of your scholarly activities, to make copies of it, to post it to a website, place it in SHAREOK or other open digital repository, and to share it with colleagues and students as you choose.
Learn more about the use of the OU Publication Agreement Addendum by reading our instructions for use.
See our Frequently Asked Questions for more information about the policy and participating.
Why OU authors choose to make their work open access
I support OA publishing because it fosters the possibility of a more diverse and wider audience for research and creative works. Arbitrary paywall barriers to access do not serve the goals of supporting ingenuity, knowledge growth, and changing the world for good. Access to new research isn’t a given—locally or globally, and we want folks everywhere to be able to see our work, comment on it, and build on it with their own research and creative endeavors.
Dr. Carol Silva, Senior Associate Vice President for Research
Easy access for other researchers, an increase in the visibility of the research work, and fast publication turn-around are benefits I’ve seen by publishing articles in open-access journals.
Dr. Chung-Hao Lee, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering
I chose to publish open access because I can reach readers that I want to reach more easily. makes new knowledge publicly available to people outside university academic circles. This is a more equitable and just distribution of ideas.
Dr. Ji Hong, Educational Psychology
I choose to publish in OA journals so I can retain the copyright to my work. Publishers often ask authors to transfer the copyright. Without holding the copyright, if I want to use a figure from my paper— a figure that I produced— I have to request permission from the publisher to use that figure elsewhere. Why should a publisher have the right to decide if and how I use my intellectual products?
Dr. J. P. Masly, Biology