On March 24, 2021, the University at Albany Senate passed a resolution in support of the University’s Open Access Policy, which was developed by a 14-member Council on Libraries, Information Systems, and Computing (LISC) Open Access Policy Work Group, with faculty, student, and staff representation across disciplines.  

This policy was subsequently formalized on September 7, 2021 by President Havidán Rodríguez.  

With this Open Access Policy, for publications accepted after September 7, 2021, UAlbany authors give the University a nonexclusive, irrevocable right to distribute their scholarly articles for any noncommercial purpose.  

For work authored after the policy, this means you will be able to    

• Share, teach with, and distribute your work freely   

• Broaden your scholarship's reach and increase your scholarship's impact  

• Support UAlbany's commitment to publicly engaged research more fully and 

• Encourage a more open, robust, equitable scholarly ecosystem 

By granting permission to UAlbany prior to committing to any contractual arrangement with publishers, UAlbany authors retain rights that might otherwise be signed away, restricting the author’s ability to open their research. Instead, scholarly articles now may be made openly available in the University’s repository, Scholars Archive, or an open access repository (or publication) of the author’s choosing without publisher permission.  

This policy does not require you to publish in specific journals or share your research against your wishes. And you may request a no-questions-asked waiver if your publisher requires it, or you so choose. 

The Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Team is here to support you as you publish and make decisions about your scholarly work. We can help you understand the policy, answer questions, and navigate the steps to making your work openly available.  

We can also help you with issues related to copyright and fair use, data management, scholarly metrics, and more.

Some considerations 

• The first time you submit your work, you will need to fill out the Assistance Authorization Form. This one-time-only form authorizes the Libraries to make deposits on your behalf into Scholars Archive and confirms in writing your grant to the University of a non-exclusive license with respect to your scholarly articles as set forth in the Open Access Policy. 

• Publishers' agreements concerning publication of articles often contain provisions that are inconsistent with the prior license granted to the University under the Open Access Policy. An author addendum, however, is a simple legal tool that can resolve the conflict. 

• You may request a no-questions-asked waiver of the University's nonexclusive license on an article-by-article basis for your work that is subject to the Open Access Policy. 

• You will need to locate the accepted manuscript version of your work (the version covered by the Policy). If you need help with this, Direct2AAM provides instructions on retrieving the accepted manuscript from publishers' journal submission systems.

• If your scholarship is covered by the policy and openly available elsewhere, then you can link to your work through Scholars Archive. 

To deposit your work in Scholars Archive, whether covered by the Open Access Policy or otherwise: 

1. Create an account at Scholars Archive and log in.

2. Select Submit Research from the Authors Corner in the left-hand-side nav bar.

3. Find and select your affiliated School/College/Department.

4. Read and accept the submission agreement.

5. Provide the required metadata about yourself (and your coauthors) and your work.

6. Upload the appropriate version of your work and any associated files. Use Open Access Button's guide for help demystifying versions.

7. Submit.

We will review your submission before it is available in Scholars Archive. 

The Libraries’ Open Access Publisher Agreements and Discounts support your effort to publish in open access journals. These partnerships aim to reduce researcher spending on open distribution while building a more sustainable publishing ecosystem.