If you are a University of California (UC) academic author who is employed at the UC but not part of the Faculty Senate, you will soon have a new way to post copies of scholarly articles you’ve written into eScholarship.org, the UC’s open access repository.
This blog post answers questions and provides assistance to those authors affected by this change.
What is happening?
There will be a procedural change to how certain UC authors upload copies of their scholarly articles to the UC’s institutional repository to make these articles available via “open access.”
Publishing “open access” means making your scholarship, research and educational materials available to be read online by anyone at no cost to the reader. Within the UC, there are many ways to publish open access, including depositing or uploading a copy of your author-accepted manuscript (AAM) into the UC’s institutional repository. Author-accepted manuscripts are the final textual version of your article without publisher formatting and final copy edits.
What’s happening now are changes to how some of you may be uploading AAMs to eScholarship. Some UC San Diego scholars (i.e., faculty senate authors) already use a special software system for the uploading process, whereas other scholars (i.e., anyone else employed within the UC who creates academic scholarship) instead upload AAMs directly to the eScholarship website. Soon, everyone (that is, both faculty and all other employees who create scholarly works) will begin using the special software system for uploading.
The software system is called UC’s Publication Management System. In addition to streamlining how you upload AAMs, the software also proactively searches published literature for articles that it thinks you authored and should deposit. If the system identifies an article that it thinks you’ve published, you will receive an email notification on a bi-monthly basis requesting that you upload your AAMs through the Publication Management System platform.
In summary, nothing is changing for you if you’re a faculty author who already has access to and uses the Publication Management System. But for all other academic authors within the UC system, you’ll soon get a new way to deposit your AAMs to eScholarship, and will receive periodic emails letting you know when to do it.
Why is this happening?
The University of California has two open access policies addressing the deposit of AAMs into the eScholarship repository. One such policy pertains to Academic Senate faculty and has been in place since 2013. The other, called the Presidential Open Access Policy (because it was issued by the UC President in 2015), covers non-faculty authors. Specifically, the Presidential Open Access Policy includes non-senate researchers, lecturers, post-doctoral scholars, administrative staff, librarians and graduate student employees.
California Digital Library, which oversees and manages the eScholarship repository, had already added everyone covered by the Academic Senate open access policy to the UC Publication Management System, making it easier for Academic Senate faculty to get their articles into eScholarship. To date, however, authors covered by the Presidential Open Access Policy have only been able to upload their articles directly via the eScholarship website, and have not yet had access to the facilitation software. California Digital Library is now adding these “Presidential” policy authors to the Publication Management System, too.
Who is affected?
Scholarly authors who are employed by the UC and who are not part of the Faculty Senate.
Faculty Senate authors already use the UC Publication Management System software to upload their articles to eScholarship. Soon, non-Faculty Senate authors will also begin using the software to upload their AAMs, rather than uploading them directly via the eScholarship website.
How does the software work?
UC’s Publication Management System software searches multiple publication databases – such as Scopus, Web of Science and others – to automatically locate scholarly articles written by UC authors. It then sends them a bi-weekly email alert asking them to review the publications identified under their name and upload a policy-compliant version of the article. The UC’s Open Access Policies grants covered authors the right to share their author accepted manuscript (the final, peer-reviewed, but not yet publisher-formatted version) immediately upon publication in a journal.
In addition to using the Publication Management System to claim and upload open access versions of articles, authors can also integrate scholarly profiles (such as ORCID), generate individual publishing reports and get up-to-date statistics on the work they’ve authored while at the UC.
When is this happening?
The California Digital Library is rolling out the change over the course of a few months. This means that after the date outlined below, affected authors will begin to claim and upload their articles using the Publication Management System, and they’ll be notified via e-mail when there is an action they need to take.
March 1, 2023 is the date that all non-Faculty Senate authors will begin receiving emailed notices requesting them to claim and upload their articles using the Publication Management System.
Where can authors get assistance?
Authors covered under the Presidential Open Access Policy can explore the UC Publication Management System now by logging in at oapolicy.universityofcalifornia.edu. However, the Publication Management System will not begin sending e-mail notifications until the approximate rollout date indicated above.
California Digital Library maintains documentation and FAQs on how to navigate and use the Publication Management System, including helpful articles about how to get started with claiming and depositing your OA-compliant articles.
UC San Diego Library staff are here to provide additional assistance. Please send your questions to oapolicy@ucsd.edu and we’ll be in touch.