Penn State's open access policy, AC02, applies to all scholarly articles written by university researchers "except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the University Researcher entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy."

Here are a few examples:

• If you completed your work on the article prior to January 1, 2020, the policy does not apply to that article.
• If you signed a publishing agreement prior to January 1, 2020 that does not allow you to share the accepted manuscript of the article in an open access repository, the policy does not apply to that article.
• If you signed a publishing agreement prior to January 1, 2020 that allows you to share the accepted manuscript of the article in an open access repository, the policy does apply to that article (unless you completed your work on it prior to January 1, 2020).

You are welcome to deposit copies of articles not covered by the policy, if you wish.

With questions about the open access policy, please contact the Libraries' Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright.