Note: This answer is for university researchers who want to use the open access policy to maximize availability of their articles. If you simply wish to satisfy the Penn State policy, please consult Make Your Work Open.

Penn State's open access policy (AC02: Open Access to Scholarly Articles) gives the university a non-exclusive license to articles covered by the policy. It allows the Libraries to make the accepted manuscript version of an article available to the public no later than the date of publication. To take full advantage of this, follow these steps:

1. Check that your article is subject to the open access policy.

• Check that you were a "university researcher" when you wrote the article.
• Check that the article is a "scholarly article."
• Check that you did not complete your work on the article or sign a publishing agreement prior to January 1, 2020.

2. Ensure your publisher is aware of the open access policy.

We have already contacted many publishers to notify them about the open access policy; our Publisher Outreach page lists the publishers contacted and their responses (if any). When you receive a publishing agreement to sign, notify or remind your publisher of the Penn State policy and your plans to make the accepted manuscript available to the public immediately upon publication.

In very rare cases, your publisher may then ask you to get a waiver of the Penn State open access policy. This is easy to do. Getting a waiver means you and the university will no longer have the right to share your article; you'll have only the rights allowed to you under your publishing agreement. You may be able to share your accepted manuscript later on, after an embargo period.

Most of the time, your publisher will not require you to get a waiver. If they say that their publishing agreement conflicts with the Penn State policy, but they are not asking you to get a waiver, you can ask them to modify your publishing contract to reflect the prior non-exclusive license to Penn State. The Penn State Author's Addendum can help with this.

3. Make your article openly available in ScholarSphere.

If your article is subject to the policy and your publisher is aware of this, you can deposit a copy of your accepted manuscript in ScholarSphere, with no embargo.

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