Ask Us: Scholarly Communications

Allowing authors to opt out of the Open Access Policy preserves their academic freedom to publish in journals that refuse to accommodate the Policy; this is especially important for junior faculty. Even with the opt-out option, the Policy changes the default for authors' rights. The status quo now is that the University has the rights to make articles authored by its UAlbany authors available open access to the world, and the University can grant these rights back to UAlbany authors for their own use. 

For more on waivers, see Stuart Shieber's blog post, "University open-access policies as mandates."