Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

UC Merced

UC Merced banner

UC Open Access Policies

The Academic Senate of the University of California adopted an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013, ensuring that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 UC campuses will be made available to the public at no charge. A precursor to this policy was adopted by the UCSF Academic Senate on May 21, 2012.

On October 23, 2015, a Presidential Open Access Policy expanded open access rights and responsibilities to all other authors who write scholarly articles while employed at UC, including non-senate researchers, lecturers, post-doctoral scholars, administrative staff, librarians, and graduate students.

How do I comply with these policies?

The UC open access policies require that UC faculty and other employees provide a copy of their scholarly articles for inclusion in eScholarship or provide a link to an open version of their articles elsewhere.

  • Senate faculty and some other employees across the UC system will be contacted via email to verify their articles within UC’s publication management system and to upload a copy or provide an open access link to their publications. Authors can also log in to the system at any time by visiting https://oapolicy.universityofcalifornia.edu.

  • All UC employees will eventually receive accounts in the publication management system. Authors who have not been added to the system yet should deposit articles using eScholarship's submission form. eScholarship has a streamlined submission process and will automatically populate article information if you provide a DOI or PMID.

What are the benefits of participating in the Open Access policies?

  • Good for authors: Open access research is read and cited more than access-restricted scholarship, increasing the academic impact of and public engagement with your ideas.

  • Good for readers: The University of California's open access policies extend the University's public mission to share broadly— throughout California, the nation, and the world — the research and knowledge produced at our campuses.

Learn more

Visit the Office of Scholarly Communication to: