Comply with Public Access Policies

Articles and data produced by the research are most useful to society when they are made freely available to the public. In recognition of this, governments, foundations, charities, and other funding organizations may require funded authors to make their articles and data freely available online upon publication.

VCU Libraries can help you comply with these policies. We offer consultations on your copyright transfer agreements or data management plans, and our institutional repository, Scholars Compass, can be used to make articles or data available to the public.

What Should You Do?

1. Check for funder access policies when you apply for grants.

2. Confirm that journal publishers allow you to comply with the funder's public access policy. Review your publishing agreement, check the journal website, or use tools like the Open Policy Finder (linked below) to determine the journal's article sharing policy. Look for sections that allow you to check off your type of funding agency policy or mention deposit of your peer-reviewed manuscript in an institutional or public repository.

3. Do not sign publishing agreements that will not allow you to comply with the public access policy of your funders.

4. Retain a copy of your final, peer-reviewed manuscript, specifically the version that has incorporated peer review changes but has not yet received publisher copyediting or formatting. You will likely need this version to comply with public access policies.

What about Data?

1. Data that supports tables and figures in your publications will need to be publicly accessible. There may also be requirements for how long you need to make your data available.

2. Check with your funder and grant description for data deposit requirements. You may be required to use a specific repository, or you may just need to provide the funder with a citation to the online location of your data.

3. The VCU institutional repository, Scholars Compass, managed by VCU Libraries, can be used for data as well as articles, and it will provide a persistent URL you can send to publishers and long-term storage of your data and publications.