<font size="2"><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Geneva, Arial, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><font size="2"><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">[Forwarding from Chloé Georas at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. The versions of these documents which I forwarded just a few minutes ago contained seven stray question marks, a regrettable side-effect of converting them to plain-text. I regret the errors. This is the corrected text. --Peter Suber.]</font></font></span></font></font><div>
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<br></div><div><br></div><div>PRESS RELEASE</div><div><br></div><div>For Immediate Publication </div><div><br></div><div>Adoption of Open Access Policy</div><div><br></div><div>by the University of Puerto Rico School of Law </div>
<div><br></div><div> On March 24, 2010, the Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico School Of Law unanimously approved the adoption of an Open Access Policy (“OAP”) in order to share the fruits of its research and scholarship as broadly as possible and reduce barriers to access them. Through the OAP, articles accepted for publication of the Faculty of the School of Law will be available for free to the general public in an online digital repository. </div>
<div><br></div><div> With the adoption of the OAP, the School of Law deepens its commitment to the global movement of open access, which promotes the free and unrestricted access to materials published digitally and placed online that are the product of academic endeavors. The open access movement is built around the principle that knowledge is a public good and, accordingly, the fruits of knowledge should be distributed for use by everyone, locally and globally. </div>
<div><br></div><div> The PAA was developed by the Cyberlaw Clinic of the Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. The students of the Clinic, under the direction of Prof. Chloé S. Georas, studied the theoretical, legal and technical aspects that underlie the PAA and based its design on similar policies adopted at other institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (<a href="http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/faculty-and-researchers/mit-faculty-open-access-policy/" target="_blank">http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/faculty-and-researchers/mit-faculty-open-access-policy/</a>) and Harvard University (<a href="http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/OpenAccess/policytexts.php" target="_blank">http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/OpenAccess/policytexts.php</a>). </div>
<div><br></div><div> Please refer to the attached document of the PAA adopted by the University of Puerto Rico School of Law.</div><div><br></div><div>----------</div><div><br></div><div><div>OPEN ACCESS POLICY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO SCHOOL OF LAW</div>
<div><br></div><div>Adopted March 24, 2010</div><div><br></div><div>The Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law (hereinafter "Faculty") is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible and reducing barriers to access them. Accordingly, the Faculty will use new technologies to facilitate access, both locally and globally, to the knowledge generated at the School of Law. </div>
<div><br></div><div>In support of the global open access movement in academia, the Faculty adopts the following Open Access Policy (hereinafter "OAP"):</div><div><br></div><div>Each Faculty member grants to the School of Law permission to make available his or her scholarly articles accepted for publication in an online digital repository (hereinafter "Repository") and to exercise copyright in these articles in order to disseminate them as widely as possible. In legal terms, each Faculty member grants the University of Puerto Rico a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise, and authorize others to exercise, any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles accepted for publication, provided that: (1) said grant is limited to the purpose of storing, preserving, publishing and distributing the articles in electronic form in the aforementioned Repository or other third party electronic platforms; and, (2) the University and authorized third parties exercise said rights only for the non-profit purposes of ensuring public and free access to the articles. The grant of this non-exclusive license to the University of Puerto Rico includes the authority to make translations of both the articles and their synopses, subject to the approval of the translations by the author.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The OAP will apply to all scholarly articles accepted for publication, written as author or co-author, while the person is a member of the Faculty, that is, a full or part-time regular or adjunct professor, with the exception of any articles completed before the adoption of this OAP and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before to the adoption of this OAP.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The OAP allows Faculty members to negotiate with publishers or scholarly journals, as needed, a temporary embargo after the publication of the article during which the article would neither be visible nor accessible to the public in the Repository. The temporary embargo enables the publisher or journal to distribute and sell the article exclusively during the embargo period, but at the end of said period, the item becomes available to the general public in the Repository. </div>
<div><br></div><div>In accordance with the OAP outlined above, we have prepared an Open Access Author Agreement for the deposit of scholarly articles subject to the OAP in the Repository and an Amendment to the Publication Agreement through which the authors notify publishers or academic journals that an article is subject to the OAP of the School of Law.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The non-exclusive license granted under the OAP in no way impairs the ownership rights of a Faculty member over his or her work. Every Faculty member may opt to exempt a particular article from the application of the OAP. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Although a Faculty member may opt for a temporary embargo under the OAP or choose to exempt a particular article from the application of the OAP, in such cases the article must always be deposited in the Repository, where it will remain invisible during the period of time specified by the Faculty member. In this way, the Repository can serve as the institutional memory of the intellectual production generated at the School of Law.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In order to assist the University in distributing the scholarly articles, each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the final version of their article accepted for publication to a representative designated by the Publications Committee in an appropriate format (i.e. PDF) specified by said Committee. The designated representative will receive the final version accepted for publication no later than the date of publication. Said representative will place the article in the Repository according to the specifications of the Faculty member. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The OAP will be implemented in accordance with the University of Puerto Rico’s policy regarding digital repositories. </div><div><br></div><div>The Publications Committee will be responsible for interpreting the OAP, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the OAP to the Faculty.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The OAP will take effect immediately and will be assessed in five years at which time the Publications Committee will present a report to the Faculty.</div></div></font></font></div></span></font></font></div>