Research by Subject: Open Access Support @ SDSU: Open Access and Retention, Tenure, and Promotion

Enacted Senate OA & OER Policies
Enacted SDSU Policy File language that acknowledges that OA publishing supports the University’s social obligations to our broader community, and explicitly allows OA publishing in journals of merit to be used as evidence for Professional Growth in the Retention, Tenure, and Promotion process. Also calls out the creation of OER course materials as allowable evidence of Teaching Excellence to ensure that faculty OER activity in support of students and university goals can be considered during the RTP process.

Points in Favor of Publishing Open Access

Open Access articles have a Citation Advantage
Open Access articles have more citation diversity
A growing number of institutions and research funders have adopted Open Access policies.
You can freely share your research on social media, reaching an audience you might not reach otherwise (and track it with a free Altmetric badge)
Publishing Open Access is required for federal funders

Is the open access citation advantage real? A systematic review of the citation of open access and subscription-based articles
A total of 5,744 items were retrieved. Ultimately, 134 items were identified for inclusion. 64 studies (47.8%) confirmed the existence of OACA, while 37 (27.6%) found that it did not exist, 32 (23.9%) found OACA only in subsets of their sample, and 1 study (0.8%) was inconclusive. Studies with a focus on multiple disciplines were significantly positively associated with finding that OACA exists in subsets, and are less associated with finding that OACA did not exist. In the critical appraisal of the included studies, 3 were found to have an overall low risk of bias. Of these, one found that an OACA existed, one found that it did not, and one found that an OACA occurred in subsets.
Open access research outputs receive more diverse citations
By analysing large-scale bibliographic data from 2010 to 2019, we found a robust association between open access and increased diversity of citation sources by institutions, countries, subregions, regions, and fields of research, across outputs with both high and medium–low citation counts. Open access through disciplinary or institutional repositories showed a stronger effect than open access via publisher platforms. This study adds a new perspective to our understanding of how citations can be used to explore the effects of open access. It also provides new evidence at global scale of the benefits of open access as a mechanism for widening the use of research and increasing the diversity of the communities that benefit from it.
The Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP)
Searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.

Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research
his memorandum provides policy guidance to federal agencies with research and development
expenditures on updating their public access policies. In accordance with this memorandum,
OSTP recommends that federal agencies, to the extent consistent with applicable law:
1. Update their public access policies as soon as possible, and no later than December 31 st ,
2025, to make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded
research publicly accessible without an embargo on their free and public release;
2. Establish transparent procedures that ensure scientific and research integrity is
maintained in public access policies; and,
3. Coordinate with OSTP to ensure equitable delivery of federally funded research results
and data