Which publications are covered by the UC OA Policies?

The University of California Academic Senate and Presidential OA policies apply to scholarly articles authored or co-authored by UC faculty and staff. The faculty who drafted the Senate OA policy left the definition of "scholarly article" intentionally flexible, to reflect differences of opinion among disciplines about what is considered a “scholarly article” and therefore covered by the policy. 

The UC Publication Management System sends UC authors email alerts and displays deposit advice for publications it has flagged as “in OA Policy” based on the data the system has about a publication’s type, date of publication, and author. In order to send these alerts, the system needs a default rule for what qualifies as a “scholarly article” under the policies. Based on the flexibility intentionally built into the policies, the system’s default is that 

• journal articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters are likely covered;
• books, reports, theses, and other publications are likely not covered.  

That said, authors remain the ones best situated to understand which writings fit the category of “scholarly articles” within their discipline. If you consider a publication to be a “scholarly article,” you are welcome to deposit it, under the auspices of the OA policies, for immediate display in eScholarship, regardless of the deposit advice shown by the system. Conversely, if you do not consider something to be a scholarly article, consult your publisher’s contract or review the “SHERPA RoMEO” (also known as the “Open policy finder”) deposit advice to review the publisher’s policy before depositing that item.

Below are some examples of how the system displays information based on whether or not a publication has been flagged as "in OA Policy."

Publication list showing publication flagged as “In OA Policy” – likely covered by a UC OA Policy

Deposit advice shown for publication flagged as “In OA Policy” – likely covered by a UC OA Policy

Publisher’s deposit policy on depositing Accepted Manuscripts under “SHERPA RoMEO advice”