The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has an opt-in open access policy, which was approved by the WHOI Educational Assembly 10/12/2016. This policy is for WHOI authors that wish to follow it. Under this policy, authors grant to WHOI permission to host their articles in the Woods Hole Open Access Server (WHOAS), an institutional repository (IR) maintained by the MBLWHOI Library.
Note for WHOI/MIT Joint Program students:
The MIT Open Access Article Publication Subvention Fund is available "for reimbursement of reasonable article processing fees for articles authored by MIT faculty, research scientists, and postdocs, and accepted for publication in eligible open-access, peer-reviewed journals to cover fees when funds from any other source are unavailable."
What is the purpose of this open access policy?
The open access policy provides a tool for WHOI to preserve the work of its authors in the institutional repository, WHOAS and to make that work openly accessible to anyone who seeks it.
Who is included in this policy?
All authors currently employed by WHOI, including scientific and engineering staff, and students, including those registered in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program.
Why a blanket policy?
A blanket policy provides the benefit of unified action; individual authors do not need to negotiate distribution rights with their publishers.
What do we mean by opt-in?
Authors are invited to particpate, but are not required or mandated to do so. Authors indicate their decision by making their accepted manuscripts available for ingest into WHOAS.
What versions of articles will be hosted in WHOAS?
The possibilities include: the post peer-review manuscript (aka the accepted manuscript) and the final published version.
Where publishing agreements allow, the preferred first choice is to host the final published version of the article in WHOAS.
Do authors need to wait until the Library makes a request?
The Library is usually not aware of articles in press until sometime after they are published. Authors are encouraged to be pro-active and make their manuscripts available in WHOAS at the same time as their post peer-review manuscripts are accepted.
When the Library becomes aware of a new article, an email will be sent requesting a copy of the accepted manuscript. It is assumed that authors that do not respond with an accepted manuscript have opted-out for that specific article.
[Note: The OA policy applies to all articles for which a WHOI author entered into a licensing or assignment agreement after the adoption of this policy on 10/12/2016.]Are contributions protected by Copyright?
All items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright. In addition, WHOAS also supports the use of Creative Commons licenses. Authors wishing a Creative Commons license need to indicate which one at the time the accepted manuscript is ingested into WHOAS.
Can contributions to WHOAS be embargoed?
Embargos can be applied to contributions at the time of ingest. An embargo permits visitors to view the metadata describing the content, but not the file(s) attached. The embargo is automatically lifted at the predetermined date.
What other institutions have the same or similar open access policies?
Check the Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP), a searchable database of open access policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders.
For more information, see also WHOI's Intellectual Property Policy and Manual
If a WHOI author wishes to have a listing of their current content in WHOAS, please contact Debbie Roth or Sam Porter for a report