OA Self-Archiving Policy: Department of Media and Communication,
Coventry University

Department of Media and Communication  (UK departmental-mandate)
http://www.coventry.ac.uk/cu/schoolofartanddesign/mediaandcommunication

Institution's/Department's OA Eprint Archives
https://curve.coventry.ac.uk/cu/logon.do

CURVE, which stands for Coventry University Repository Validation &
Enhancement, is Coventry University's existing institutional
repository.

Institution's/Department's OA Self-Archiving Policy
Open Access Self-Archiving Policy: Coventry University, Department of
Media and Communication

This Open Access Self-Archiving Policy requires all researchers in the
Department of Media and Communication at Coventry University to
deposit copies of their research outputs in CURVE (which stands for
Coventry University Repository Validation & Enhancement), in order to
make these outputs freely accessible and easily discoverable online,
and so increase the visibility, dissemination, usage and impact of the
Department’s research. This Open Access Self-Archiving Policy will be
mandatory from 1st September 2009 onwards.

The Department’s Open Access Self-Archiving Policy makes it obligatory
for each researcher in the Department to supply an electronic copy of
the author’s final version of all peer-reviewed research outputs for
deposit in CURVE immediately upon their acceptance for publication.

The policy also endorses the depositing in CURVE of an electronic copy
of the author’s final accepted version of all non-peer reviewed
research outputs, especially those that are likely to contribute to
any future REF, as well as of research outputs published before the
introduction of this policy.

Researchers will make these research outputs available for deposit in
CURVE together with the relevant bibliographic metadata (name of
author, title of publication, date and place of publication and so
on). When doing so they will indicate whether a particular research
output can be made publicly visible.

Where it is possible to do so all researchers in the Department of
Media and Communication at Coventry University are required to
designate outputs deposited in CURVE as being publicly available Open
Access. This will enable the full text of the output and the
associated metadata to be easily found, accessed, indexed and searched
across a range of global search engines, archives and databases.

In those instances where it is not possible to do so – because it is
necessary to comply with the legal requirements of a publisher’s or
funder’s copyright policy or licensing agreement, for example -
researchers can define outputs deposited in CURVE as being ‘closed
access’ and for use only within Coventry University as an aid to the
administration, management and reporting of research activity. In such
cases only the metadata of the research output will be visible
publicly, with Open Access to the full text being delayed for that
period specified by the publisher or funder, often in the form of an
eighteen, twelve or (preferably, at most) six month embargo. The full
text of the output can then be made publicly available under Open
Access conditions at a later date, immediately the period of the
embargo has come to an end or permission to do so has otherwise been
granted.

To keep such cases to an absolute minimum, from 1st September 2009
researchers in the Department of Media and Communication at Coventry
University are expected, as much as is possible and appropriate, to
avoid signing copyright or licensing agreements that do not allow
electronic copies of the author’s final, peer reviewed and accepted
version of their research outputs to be deposited in an institutional
Open Access repository such as CURVE.

17 July 2009