Department of Library Services

UP Open Access Mandates

The University of Pretoria supports free open access to the research literature for all researchers worldwide and takes responsibility for the dissemination of its own research outputs.

Research papers

In February 2009 Senate and the Executive of the University of Pretoria adopted a policy for the mandatory submission of research papers authored by UP staff and students. The complete text of the policy is available on the UP intranet at http://www.up.ac.za/intranet/registrar/2009-09-22e_Open%20access%20to%20res%20papers.pdf

Policy statement

To assist the University of Pretoria in providing open access to scholarly articles and conference papers resulting from research done at the University, and which are wholly or in part supported by public funding, staff and students are required to

· submit peer-reviewed postprints of their articles and published conference papers to UPSpace, the University’s institutional repository (https://www.up.ac.za/dspace/), AND

· give the University permission to a) make the content freely available and b) to take necessary steps to preserve files in perpetuity.

Postprints are to be submitted immediately after acceptance for publication.
The University of Pretoria requires its researchers to comply with the policies of research funders with regard to open access archiving. Postprints of these articles are not excluded from the UP mandate and should first be submitted as described in 1.

The Department of Library Services: Open Scholarship Office will manage implementation of the mandate including

· adhering to archiving policies of publishers and research funders, and

· managing the system's embargo facility to delay public visibility to meet publishers’ requirements

Access to the full text of articles will be subject to publisher regulations.

· Access will not be provided if archiving permission is in doubt or not available. In such cases, an abstract will be made available for external internet searches to achieve maximum research visibility.

· Access to the full text of articles will be suppressed for a period if such an embargo is prescribed by the publisher or funder.

The University of Pretoria strongly recommends that transfer of copyright to publishers be avoided. Researchers are encouraged to negotiate copyright terms with publishers when the publisher does not allow archiving, reuse and sharing. This can be done by adding the official UP author addendum to a publishing contract.

The University of Pretoria encourages its authors to publish their research articles in accredited open access journals.

Theses and dissertations

In 2004 policy was adopted for the mandatory submission of all research theses (doctoral degrees) and dissertations (masters degrees). The complete text of the policy is available on the UP intranet at http://www.up.ac.za/intranet/registrar/2009-09-22e_ThesesDissertations.pdf.

Policy Statement

Each student should submit paper and electronic copies of his/her thesis/dissertation to the Postgraduate Office of the relevant faculty (Yearbook General Regulation G57.4(i)). Alternatively students may self-submit their theses/dissertations to the UPeTD system (http://upetd.up.ac.za).
Various options can be exercised for the temporary restriction of access to the full text while publishing and IP negotiations are underway, or to comply with the prescriptions of a funder.
The Department of Library Services: Open Scholarship Office will manage implementation of the mandate.