Our Commitment to Open Access

What do we mean by open access?

Open access (OA) publishing is a scholarly research model that provides unrestricted access and digital reuse rights to high-quality academic research, articles and data. Open access materials are free of the traditional paywalls and database restrictions that impede availability to a large number of researchers and the public. Western Michigan University Libraries values equitable accessibility and innovative academic dissemination – we are proud to adopt and support open access publishing at our institution.

We value open access because

  • OA breaks down barriers to information. It provides access to research for under-resourced institutions and the general public, and increases exposure to ideas, research, and collaboration.
  • OA makes scientific research funded through government grants available to the taxpayers that fund it.
  • OA publishing provides transparency and awareness of the intellectual output of our University and shines a light on the innovative scholarship taking place at WMU.  
  • OA promotes a sustainable structure for accessing and publishing research within the bounds of copyright.

Our guiding practices include

  • Building awareness of the benefits of OA to stakeholders campus-wide, and providing continuing education on the evolving landscape of open access publishing.
  • Assisting the WMU community in finding open access options for their research and publishing activities.
  • Providing and maintaining WMU’s institutional repository (ScholarWorks) – an online platform for our community’s faculty, staff, and students to make their publications and research openly accessible.
  • Committing the Libraries’ resources to adopt and support a more sustainable scholarly communications ecosystem through OA.

We are demonstrating our commitment to OA publishing in the Libraries by

  • Seeking out and pursuing open access options when making decisions on where to publish our faculty and staff’s scholarly articles and research.
  • Striving to maintain author rights/copyright for our publications.
  • Uploading or linking our own publications to WMU Libraries institutional repository, ScholarWorks, or another open repository.
  • Providing robust access to the research materials our diverse academic community needs. While this has traditionally been through paid subscriptions and acquisitions, we also dedicate resources to the scholarly transformation to OA through its many forms.
  • Serving as editors or reviewers for open access library journals.
https://wmich.edu/library/open-access-commitment
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