According to a library staff member, the Utah State Faculty Senate passed a proposed "Retention of Authors Copyright to Scholarly Articles and Deposit in the University's Open Access Repository" policy yesterday (see section 3:40, item 1). The policy will be sent next to the Human Resources department for further consideration since it is a proposed personnel policy.
Here's an excerpt:
(1) Author's Rights
The University recognizes the importance of copyright and urges faculty members to retain rights to their own scholarly articles. Therefore, if a publisher's standard contract requires the transfer of copyright and/or does not allow deposit in the University's open access repository, the University expects faculty authors to negotiate the terms of the publisher's contract by attaching an addendum to the contract asserting the author's right to retain the copyright and/or the right to deposit the published version or pre-print version of the scholarly article in the University's open access repository. Should a publisher insist on the transfer of copyright as a condition of publication or refuse to permit the deposition of the published version or preprint version of the scholarly article in the University's open access repository, it is at the faculty author's discretion whether or not to continue with the publication, which will invoke an automatic waiver to this policy (see 5.2(2)).
(2) Deposit in the University's Open Access Repository
Each faculty member grants permission to the University to post in the University's open access repository all of his or her scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles published while employed by the University. In legal terms each faculty member grants to the University a nonexclusive license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for profit, and to authorize others to do the same. This license in no way interferes with the rights of a faculty author as the copyright holder of the work but instead promotes a wide distribution and increased impact of the author's work. If a faculty author's attempt to retain full rights is unsuccessful, the author may proceed with publication, thereby invoking an automatic waiver for that particular article. While it is not necessary in these situations to formally request a waiver, it is recommended that the author send the bibliographic citation to the Library, alerting librarians that a waiver is being invoked and that the publication may not be posted in the University's open access repository.
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