The Academic Senate of the University of California adopted an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013, ensuring that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge. A precursor to this policy was adopted by the UCSF Academic Senate on May 21, 2012.
On October 23, 2015, a Presidential Open Access Policy expanded open access rights and responsibilities to all other authors who write scholarly articles while employed at UC, including non-senate researchers, lecturers, post-doctoral scholars, administrative staff, librarians, and graduate students.
As of March 25, 2020, there is now a system wide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations, indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (“embargo”) obtained by the student.”
Good for authors: Open access research is read and cited more than access-restricted scholarship, increasing the academic impact of and public engagement with your ideas
Good for readers: The University of California's Open Access policies extend the University's public mission to share broadly— throughout California, the nation, and the world — the research and knowledge produced at our campuses.
What is my responsibility for depositing my work?
The UC open access policies require that UC faculty and other employees provide a copy of their scholarly articles for inclusion in eScholarship or provide a link to an open version of their articles elsewhere.
https://escholarship.org/ and https://escholarship.org/uc/ucsd
