5.5 Policy on Open Access to Faculty Publications

The Faculty of Georgia Tech is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In addition to the public benefit of such dissemination, this policy is intended to serve faculty interests by promoting greater reach and impact for articles, simplifying author retention of distribution rights, and aiding in electronic preservation. In keeping with these commitments, the Faculty adopts the following policy:

Each Faculty member grants to Georgia Tech Research Corporation (hereinafter "GTRC") nonexclusive permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles for the purpose of open dissemination. In legal terms, each Faculty member grants to GTRC a nonexclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license to exercise any and all copyrights in his or her scholarly articles published in any medium, provided the articles are not sold or licensed for a profit by GTRC or any GTRC-granted licensee.

This policy applies to all published scholarly articles that any person authors or co-authors while appointed as a member of the Faculty, except for any such articles authored or co-authored before the adoption of this policy, or subject to a conflicting agreement formed before the adoption of this policy, or conducted under a classified research agreement.   Upon notification by the author, the Provost or Provost's designate will waive application of this license for a particular article. At author request, access will be delayed for up to one year.

To assist in distributing the scholarly articles, each Faculty member will make available an electronic copy of his or her final version of the article at no charge to a designated representative of the Provost’s Office in appropriate formats (such as PDF) specified by the Provost’s Office, no later than the date of publication. The Provost’s Office or designate will make the scholarly article available to the public in an open-access institutional repository.

In lieu of submission to a Georgia Tech institutional repository, an author may satisfy the terms of this policy by making such work available through an alternative repository of the author's choosing, with notification to the Provost or Provost's designate, provided that such repository makes the work accessible in full-text to the public, without costs imposed on any individual user, and that it offers to preserve and maintain access to the work indefinitely.

The Provost will charge an Open Access Policy and Implementation Committee with policy interpretation and with developing a plan that renders compliance with the policy as convenient for the faculty as possible.   The OA Policy and Implementation Committee comprises two members of the Library/Faculty Advisory Board, one member of the Faculty Services Committee, one member of the library staff, and one representative of GTRC.

The policy and service model will be reviewed after three years and a report presented to the Faculty. Thereinafter, the policy will be reviewed every five years.

In applying these policies to specific scholarly articles, faculty should utilize the Library’s website,
http://openaccess.gatech.edu/ or https://www.library.gatech.edu/smartech-submission.