Adopted by the Amherst College Faculty on 5 March 2013
The Faculty of Amherst College is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to Amherst College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to Amherst College a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others, including Faculty members, to do the same. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean of the Faculty or Dean of the Faculty’s designate will waive application of the policy for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time upon express direction by a Faculty member.
Each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version of each article for which no waiver has been obtained no later than the date of its publication at no charge to the appropriate representative of the Dean of the Faculty’s Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Dean of the Faculty’s Office.
The Dean of the Faculty’s Office may make the article available to the public in an open-access repository. The Office of the Dean of the Faculty will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time.
You may also wish to consult the Open access instructions for faculty or Open access FAQ.
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For the purposes of this policy (and only for the purposes of this policy), the Dean of the Faculty defines "Faculty" as those with appointments as Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, and Lecturer. (22 September 2015)
Staff may contribute scholarly content to the Octagon, but the open access resolution passed by the faculty does not require staff to do so. (Decision by the dean of the faculty, May 2016).