What Is the Caltech Open Access Policy?

In June 2013, the Caltech Faculty Board adopted an Open Access Policy to help disseminate the fruits of Caltech research and scholarship as widely as possible.

To facilitate this policy, the Institute requests each faculty member to provide a copy of each scholarly article to the Provost’s Office, who may make it available to the public in Caltech Library’s open-access repository, CaltechAUTHORS.

After January 1, 2014, the policy automatically gives Caltech a license to any scholarly articles faculty members complete. It also allows faculty to legally make the manuscript of their peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers openly accessible and enables Caltech to help them do so.

Who Does the Open Access Policy Apply to?

The policy applies to 1) all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the faculty (except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and 2) any articles for which the faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy). Students, post-docs, and staff are exempt.

Open Access Policy Waiver

If needed, the Provost will waive application of the Institute’s license for a particular article or will delay access for a specified period of time if requested by the faculty member using the Open Access Policy Waiver.

Submit a Waiver Request

Background and History

The Caltech Open Access policy was adopted June 10, 2013 and became effective January 1, 2014. The Faculty Board minutes of June 10, 2013 (restricted to campus) record the discussion and vote on the subject. A press release was published in advance in December 2013.

Caltech's policy is not unique. Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have similar policies. Research funders are supporting such efforts as well. For instance, the National Institutes of Health now require posting of articles derived from research they fund in the open access repository PubMed Central. Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the Wellcome Trust require any scholarly articles on research they fund to be made openly accessible.

Still Have Questions?

Browse our Open Access Policy FAQs or contact us at library@caltech.edu.

Notifying Publishers about the Open Access Policy

Caltech has notified the major publishers of Caltech articles about the policy. To be thorough, authors may communicate this policy to their publisher and add an addendum to any copyright license or assignment for scholarly articles, stating that the agreement is subject to this non-exclusive prior license. That way, they will avoid agreeing to give the publisher exclusive rights that are inconsistent with the prior license to Caltech that permits open-access distribution. Science Commons provides a suitable form of addendum for this purpose. Whether you use the addendum or not, the license to Caltech still will remain in effect.

Learn more about the transformative agreements that we have with publishers.