Open Scholarship Policy Observatory (Volume 1)/Canadian Open Access University Statements

This observation was written by Sarah Milligan, for the Electronic Textual Cultures Laboratory and the Implementing New Knowledge Environments partnership.

Virtually every Canadian university has a set of resources on open access. These web pages are usually maintained by librarians and answer questions such as, what is open access (OA)? What is the difference between green and gold OA? How can I comply with the Tri-Agency Policy on OA?

While the “Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications” mandates open access for any research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, several universities have published their own commitments to open access. Every institution listed below recommends repository deposit (that is, green OA) as the first priority, and many have had institutional repositories for well over a decade. Many institutions also encourage gold OA.

Many institutions have statements which have been published by their Faculty Senate or Board of Governors:

• Acadia University (June 2016) (see our PDF copy)
• Athabasca University (13 June 2014) (Athabasca University Press is also the first open access scholarly press in Canada) (see our PDF copy)
• Brock University (27 May 2020) (see our PDF copy)
• Carleton University (February 2017) (see our PDF copy)
• Concordia University (16 April 2010) (see our PDF copy)
• Mount Saint Vincent University (29 January 2016) (see our PDF copy)
• Simon Fraser University (January 2017) (see our PDF copy)
• TÉLUQ (11 December 2013) (see our PDF copy)
• University of British Columbia (2013) (see our PDF copy)
• l’Université Laval (17 February 2017) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Lethbridge (7 February 2020) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Prince Edward Island (10 February 2012) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Windsor (May 2015) (see our PDF copy)
• York University (1 July 2019) (see our PDF copy)

Many other statements come from librarians, who are committed to ensuring that their own research appears open access, as well as committed to supporting their fellow researchers at their institution. Below are some of the Canadian institutions whose OA statements have been published by their libraries:

• Brock University Library (7 September 2018) (see our PDF copy)
• McGill University Library (30 April 2020) (see our PDF copy)
• Mount Royal University Library (21 March 2014) (see our PDF copy)
• Ryerson University Library (12 June 2020) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Manitoba Library (January 2017) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Ottawa Library (17 January 2018) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Regina Librarians’ and Archivists’ Council Policy on Open Access (20 January 2022) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Saskatchewan Librarians and Archivists (10 December 2020) (see our PDF copy)
• University of Victoria Librarians (2024) (see our PDF copy)
• York University Libraries (see our PDF copy)

Some statements have come from individual schools or faculties, such as:

• University of Guelph Faculty of Environmental Sciences (see our PDF copy)
• University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (see our PDF copy)
• University of Victoria Faculty of Education (5 December 2019) (see our PDF copy)

Most statements recommend that authors strive for the best possible effort to make research OA, and that universities make the best possible effort to support them. As Peter Suber has demonstrated, even the strongest OA mandates always allow for a waiver option (81); Simon Fraser University’s statement, for instance, grants the University permission to make their work OA as a default, but allows for waivers in cases where sharing their work would not be appropriate. SFU also acknowledges that while they “expect authors to participate, no University sanctions will result from failure to comply” (n.p.).

Several institutions specifically endorse public statements about OA such as the BBB definition (that is, the Budapest, Bethesda and Berlin statements from 2002-2003), which is endorsed by University of Calgary. Mount Royal endorses the Budapest Statement along with CARL and IFLA’s position statements on open access.

Works Cited

• “SFU Open Access Policy.” 2017. Simon Fraser University. https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publish/scholarly-publishing/open-access/open-access-policy.

• Suber, Peter. Open Access. 2012. MIT Press. https://openaccesseks.mitpress.mit.edu/.