Université de Sherbrooke
AC-11: Open Access to Research

The Université de Sherbrooke strongly encourages open access publishing since open access to research results offers several benefits, among them: Accelerate the advancement of research through greater results sharing; Reduce duplication of work; Democratize access to knowledge; Ensure transparency in the investment of public funds; Develop a critical analysis of the population; Enable greater use of knowledge. It is within this context that the University’s Executive Committee has adopted guidelines to provide a framework and allow all researchers to publish the results of their work in open access. One, adopted in 2005, is aimed at students and describes the modalities of the digital repository of thesis, dissertations and essays (Directive 2600-025), and the other, adopted in 2016, is aimed at all members of the university community who wish to make their research accessible, and sets out the guidelines for the digital repository of all research publications (Directive 2600-060). In cases where an open access repository is not possible through a scientific journal (like it would be the case with PubMed Central, for instance), the Université de Sherbrooke offers publishing services through the "Éditions UdeS" (meaning, UdeS Publishing) and an institutional repository “Savoirs UdeS”, an open access web platform provided by the Libraries and Archives Services that gathers, preserves and disseminates research results of the Université de Sherbrooke, with no financial or legal barrier. To facilitate the process, students and researchers alike can benefit from a supporting framework providing services that will handle the deposit of their publications. More specifically, several means are in place to support faculty members, as well as students, with article processing and other open access publication. For instance: • Reporting to the Research, Innovation and Creation Support Service (Service d'appui à la recherche, à l'innovation et à la création (SARIC), a full-time professional is dedicated to the Éditions UdeS (UdeS Publishing) management, which includes providing the necessary support to researchers for their related open access publishing; • Support to students and researchers for open access publishing takes several forms: A team of four technicians and two librarians from the Libraries and Archives Services is directly affiliated with Savoirs UdeS repository. This team provides technical support for the deposit to the open access web platform or for open access publishing more broadly. In each faculty (or division), there are Savoirs UdeS repository administrators who see to answer some of the students' inquiries. As for researchers open access publishing, subject or disciplinary librarians supported by a team of technicians see to the following: receipt of documents, carry out compliance verification, filling licenses and final validation with researchers; Subject or disciplinary librarians answer researchers' questions about online open access repository, including Savoirs UdeS repository, but also pertaining to other web platforms that might better meet their specific needs, such as arXiv.org. In addition, the librarians assist researchers in identifying open access journals to publish in or in assessing the quality of certain open access journals in order to avoid predatory and poor-quality journals. For highly technical questions, the Savoirs UdeS repository team is there to provide answers and solutions; • Departmental support funds are made available to cover the costs of open access publishing; • For the publication of open educational resources (ressources éducatives libres (REL)), the Université de Sherbrooke, in collaboration with two other Québec universities, is coordinating the REL Factory (La Fabrique REL) project. Carried out as part of a mandate granted by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur) and the Digital Action Plan for Education and Higher Education (Plan d’action numérique en éducation et en enseignement supérieur), La Fabrique REL has the mandate to support teaching staff in the creation of high-quality French-language open educational resources for the higher education sector.  The vision of La Fabrique REL is expressed through an ecoresponsible approach to the development of educational materials based on the following principles: ongoing enhancement of teaching and learning resources, the pooling of teaching staff expertise, the accessibility to studies through significant savings in academic resources, and the democratization of knowledge and education. Authors retain control and full copyright privileges, and the end-user agrees to properly recognize and cite the source when making use of the materials made available on “Savoir UdeS” platform. Finally, and as to promote visibility, “Savoir UdeS” content is harvested or retrievable in other open access resources such as Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Google Scholar and WorldCat. Notwithstanding the University's above undertaking to allow all researchers to publish in open access, it abides by Canada’s guidelines originating from the "Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications" and those of Québec which are detailed in the "Politique de libre accès aux résultats de recherche publiés ". Indeed, the Canadian and Québec granting agencies (i.e. CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS)) adopted these policies as to promote the principle of knowledge sharing and mobilization. It is pursuant to these policies, and according to specific requirements, that all articles resulting from such sponsored research must be freely accessible on the publisher's website or in an online repository within twelve months of publication. Despite the fact that this policy is to improve access to the results of Agency-funded research, it has to be mentioned that the policy also states that “All researchers, regardless of funding support, are encouraged to adhere to this policy.” It also adds (under FAQ) that “The Agencies encourage all researchers and trainees to adopt the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications as a best practice and to increase the dissemination of research findings.” In that respect, the policy would apply to all researchers, not only those who are funded by the Agencies.

Publish Research Results (University’s website): https://www.usherbrooke.ca/gestion-recherche/gerer/publier-resultats/ University’s Adopted Guidelines: https://www.usherbrooke.ca/biblio/fileadmin/sites/biblio/documents/pdf/2600-025_7juin2016.pdf https://www.usherbrooke.ca/biblio/fileadmin/sites/biblio/documents/pdf/2600-060_7juin2016.pdf Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications and the FRQS Policy: http://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_F6765465.html http://www.frqs.gouv.qc.ca/documents/11314/435506/Politique-de-libre-acces-aux-resultats-derecherche-publies/f0a628b7-f36c-409f-b2b9-4334713e0085 Article - The obligation to make publications freely available in open access: https://www.usherbrooke.ca/biblio/accueil/biblio-manchettes/biblio-manchettes-details/article/38604/ Institutional repository “Savoirs UdeS”: https://libguides.biblio.usherbrooke.ca/savoirs/accueil