Y’all are not very inquisitive…. if you do come up with an about-tenure question, please feel free to send my way and I’ll get to it ASAP.

Stephen asked: 

Has your library made any mention of open access publishing efforts in its tenure and promotion guidelines?

Yes, actually, though it’s very recent. This spring there was a task force with challenging task of revising our guidelines, with the research definition being slightly broadened in acknowledgment of other types of research outputs beyond peer reviewed journal articles. Following a lot of meetings, revisions, and wordsmithing, a new finalized version was voted on by the faculty over the summer, which applies to those going up for tenure at the campus level starting Academic Year 2015. I fall under the new guidelines immediately.

Our current [old] norms are linked here. I’m not sure when that will be updated. The salient phrase is:

In support of the changing landscape of scholarly communications, Library Faculty are

encouraged to publish in open access journals or to deposit into a repository and to

retain their author’s rights, when appropriate.

Not mentioned in the tenure documents, but still influencing our research and work is the Open Access Mandate the Library Faculty adopted in 2011. This requires that, absent of a waiver, we deposit our research into the repository within 30 days of publication.  You can see my deposits here.

We also will fall subject to whatever comes out of this recent Illinois state legislation, which is prompting a university wide required discussion and plan for improving open access to the research generated by state funded institutions. How my university will handle it is as yet unclear but we’re hoping to hear more information soon.

Thank you for the question Stephen!