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Because the world needs your research
The University of Iowa values transparent, replicable research, and open scholarship principles that encourage the open sharing of research outputs. Increased accessibility of research outputs facilitates collaboration, spurs the knowledge economy, strengthens scientific literacy and education, and generates broad social and public benefits. The university is committed to reducing barriers to the uptake of open scholarship practices in all disciplines. This toolkit provides the guidance and assistance UI scholars need to share the results of their research freely and openly with the public and the academic community.
John Culshaw, Jack B. King University Librarian
John Keller, Special Assistant to the UI Executive Vice President and Provost
J. Martin Scholtz, Vice President for Research
UI Libraries Commitment to Open Access
University of Iowa Libraries supports models of open access publishing that are equitable for scholars and the general public, both at our institution and around the world. Our Statement of Open Access Support provides more information about the resources and services we provide to make more UI scholarship open access.
What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) is the free, immediate, online availability of learning materials, research, and creative work. When we talk about OA, we typically mean journal articles and monographs that are published under an open license and are available for anyone to access and reuse, without paywalls, logins, or other barriers to access (this is sometimes called libre OA). Sometimes you might find copyrighted content that is free to read online, but this content is not openly licensed and may not be disseminated or reused without permission (This is known as gratis OA). While you can read these articles, you can't do much more than that.
Funder Mandates
Increasingly, federal funding agencies, private foundations, and universities require that researchers make their grant-funded articles available to the public. Most recently, on August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released policy guidance to ensure "free, immediate, and equitable access" to federally funded research by recommending that federal agencies update their public access policies. The updated policies should "make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible without an embargo on their free and public release".
Below are some of the agencies' and organizations' public access policies:
- NIH Public Access Policy OverviewLearn about the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy and its applicability.
- Plan SPlan S requires all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by European public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.
- Article and Data Sharing Requirements by Federal AgencyThis is a community resource from SPARC for tracking, comparing, and understanding both current and future U.S. federal funder requirements for sharing research articles and research data.
- ROARMAPThe Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP) is a searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.
- Sherpa Juliet: Research Funders' Open Access PoliciesSherpa Juliet is a searchable database and single focal point of up-to-date information concerning funders' policies and their requirements on open access, publication and data archiving.
Learn More
- Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a WorkshopNational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2021. Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26308.
- Open Science Success Stories DatabaseCompilation of articles, perspectives, case studies, news stories, and other materials that demonstrate the myriad ways in which open science benefits researchers and society alike. Developed by Arizona State University in collaboration with the Open Research Funders Group.