What Is the Caltech Open Access Policy?

The Caltech Faculty Board adopted an Open Access Policy, effective January 1, 2014, to help make Caltech research and scholarship available as widely as possible. The policy automatically gives Caltech a license to host any scholarly articles written by faculty that have been accepted for formal publication. It allows faculty to legally make the accepted manuscript version of their peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers openly accessible. The Caltech Library, as the designated representative of the Provost's Office, may request faculty members provide electronic copies of their scholarly publications to be made available to the public in CaltechAUTHORS.

What Does the Open Access Policy Apply to?

The policy applies to scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Caltech faculty and published on or after January 1, 2014.

Please note that this policy is not related in any way to any grant funder-mandated open access requirements.

To Whom Does the Open Access Policy Apply?

This form is only required for Caltech faculty authors. The Policy applies exclusively to tenured/tenure-track faculty, research faculty, and postdoctoral scholars with appointments on the Caltech campus. The policy does not apply to staff or students.

Open Access Policy Waiver

Some publishers, as part of their publishing agreement, do not allow the public posting of accepted or published manuscripts anywhere except the publisher's website. This condition is in direct conflict with Caltech's Open Access policy. As such, in order to publish in these journals, Caltech faculty need to give up (waive) their right to make their work freely available in CaltechAUTHORS. To submit a waiver request, please fill out the following form:

Submit a Waiver Request

The email response received after filling out the form is the waiver approval statement. This email should then be shared with the publisher as requested. 

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.