Colorado State University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

The Colorado State University Libraries Open Access Commitment was adopted by the CSU Libraries Faculty Council on May 2, 2012. The policy is a campus-wide commitment to open access and encourages self-archiving of scholarly articles in its shared institutional repository service, Mountain Scholar, as allowed by copyright (https://dspace.library.colostate.edu/). The University Open Press also supports the production and distribution of open-access scholarly and educational content, including books, journals, and open educational resources.  Other campus faculty and graduate students deposit their articles in CSU’s institutional repository also, or another disciplinary repository (e.g., PubMed Central, arXiv, etc.).  All CSU theses and dissertations are deposited in Mountain Scholar for worldwide access.  Students depositing their thesis or dissertation are required to make discoverable, accessible and available the associated data sets per the campus research data policy. http://policylibrary.colostate.edu/policy.aspx?id=737  Faculty and researchers are making data sets accessible via the institutional repository or disciplinary repositories to comply with federal funding agency requirements, with the assistance of Libraries faculty.  The CSU Libraries has a Committee on Open Access and Scholarly Communication to consider and address open access issues. Mountain Scholar is a service of Colorado State University Libraries, providing free and open online access to the research and scholarship of CSU’s faculty, students, and staff. This digital repository brings together all of the university’s research under one umbrella, with an aim to preserve and provide access to that research with increased visibility by being part of a repository. Mountain Scholar is hosted and managed by the CSU Libraries on behalf of a consortium of academic entities in the states of Colorado and Wyoming. Users can access a range of content including but not limited to: o Journal articles o Conference proceedings and presentations o Theses and dissertations o Audio and video files o Administrative and policy documents o University publications o Datasets from research projects and grants Mountain Scholar meets the sharing requirements for open access to publicly-funded research (NIH) and sharing your data can satisfy data management planning required by NSF or other funding agencies. Long-term access/preservation of works is provided via a permanent url for each work with a guarantee of no broken links over time so works remain accessible long-term. The Colorado State University Open Press supports the production and distribution of open-access scholarly and educational content, including books, journals, and open educational resources. The Press is supported by Colorado State University and the many donors, sponsors, and volunteers who contribute to its projects. Copyright on the materials on this site is held by the authors and editors who have contributed content to it (© 2016-2019). This site is published using the Mura CMS and the Lucee open-source CFML platform. The Open Access Research and Scholarship (OARS) Fund exists to provide support for and encourage open access publishing among faculty at Colorado State University. The fund will reimburse 50% of open access processing fees up to $1500 per article. All tenure/tenure-track faculty as well as all full-time research scientists are eligible to apply (https://libguides.colostate.edu/c.php?g=149709&p=986904).

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The Libraries, under the guidance of the CSU Faculty Council Committee on Libraries, supports and administers the Open Access Research & Scholarship (OARS) Fund. https://libguides.colostate.edu/c.php?g=149709&p=986904 The University has a strong land grant mission to the citizens of Colorado which the Libraries recognize and supports through its access policies, unique local collections, and specific core subject collections (e.g. veterinary medicine, agriculture, water). In its collections, the Libraries strives to maintain these historic strengths as well as future needs. The Libraries recognize the need for and support interdisciplinary and subject-specific resources in different formats and incorporates technologies that deliver these resources to users in a timely and convenient manner. The Libraries collect material in all appropriate formats, including print, electronic, and multimedia. The Libraries prefer to collect in electronic formats when feasible. As new technologies and practices emerge, the Libraries will adapt the collection strategies to those which will best serve its users. Open access section of the Collection Development Policies: In addition, the Libraries support new publishing initiatives such as Open Access that intend to make access to research more affordable and available. Current efforts include providing direct access to open access resources primarily offered by the Directory of Open Access in the Libraries online catalog and supporting author fees for certain publishers.

More resources related to CSU’s open access can be found at https://libguides.colostate.edu/openaccess/home