The Mary and Jeff Bell Library, the Division of Research and Innovation (R&I), the Office of the Provost, the Conrad Blucher Institute (CBI), and the Harte Research Institute (HRI) are proud to support Open Access (OA) through the Open Access Publication Fund. The purpose of the fund is to underwrite publication charges for scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and books published in fully Open Access publications.
In 2024-2025, we anticipate having $60,000 to support open access publishing projects. More information will be forthcoming soon.
An institutional repository is a type of digital repository focused on collecting, managing, and disseminating important digital content produced by the members of an institution like a university. The TAMU-CC repository (https://tamucc-ir.tdl.org/) is open to all members of the university community to contribute content for persistent long-term access and management. Management activities include preservation activities, application of metadata standards to promote discovery and access, and persistent links to content for use in citing and linking to works.
The TAMU-CC Repository collects and provides long term public access to the scholarly output of the students, staff, faculty, and researchers of Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. The repository is also the main digital dissemination platform for the library's special collections.
By including an open access version of faculty works in an institutional repository, we enable those works to be found, re-used, and have impact beyond what would be possible if they were only available behind a paywall. The works become more accessible, which means they will be seen, read, and used by more people, expanding the reach of published works beyond those lucky few with a subscription.
Users can post open access versions of their scholarship in the repository for online access by the public. A persistent link for each item in the repository is available for use in linking to the work from personal and departmental web pages, CVs, and other documents.
Permissions and rights must be considered before open versions of works can be placed in the repository. Most publishers have policies on what versions of a work and at what point in time post-publication a work can be shared in a repository. The library can help users verify permissions and rights for posting scholarly works online.
For more information please see the TAMU-CC Repository guide or contact scholarlycommunications@tamucc.edu
Getting published is quite the accomplishment. It takes hard work to write something worth publishing, and getting something published is hard work itself. Often authors are too excited and relieved to read the fine print of whatever agreement the publisher sends them. However, knowing what you are signing is important in exercising your rights as the copyright holder. You may be asked to relinquish all copyright. Authors who are faced with a publication contract that seeks transfer of the copyright should not hesitate to negotiate new terms or at least to reserve rights to use their own work in future teaching and writing and publish their work in a repository or find a different publisher. There are resources that can help in making decisions about their copyrights.
SPARC defines Open Access:
Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.
This can include journals, books, databases, etc. Traditional academic publishing makes accessing journal articles and books expensive and rather difficult to access. Authors who publish open access use their copyright to more equitable access to information for everyone around the world.
For authors publishing their work, publishing open access may mean that their work is deposited in an open access repository, or that they are publishing in a journal that offers open access to all of their articles, or to those articles where an author negotiates for their work to be open access. Learn more about Open Access.
This section of the Copyright and Fair Use guide discusses using copyrighted works in the classroom. This includes course materials such as course reserves, showing films in class, and alternatives to traditional copyrighted works to use in your teaching.
In this digital age, copyright and fair use have become increasingly complex. In truth, the copyright law has not kept pace with the incredible advancements in technology that take place at an increasingly rapid rate.
Below we have some helpful tips if you are trying to share an article with your class.
The Teach (Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization) Act, like Fair Use, is an exemption to copyright to afford educators rights to use copyrighted works regardless of rights designations.
You are exempt from copyright considerations if you use the materials in accordance with the TEACH Act or Section 110(2) of the Copyright Code. Here is an explanation of this part of the law. There is also a checklist available to help you identify whether a use is sanctioned under the TEACH Act.
Contact scholarlycommunications@tamucc.edu for more assistance with the Teach Act.
If you have an article we do not have access to but that you still wish to use, you can provide the article to your students through Bell Library, using the Course Library plug-in in Canvas. The library will attempt to purchase copyright permission on your behalf, and we will pay the fee up to a certain amount. If the fee exceeds the library's cap, your department can make up the remaining cost, or you may have to find new material to use.
As creative works, motion pictures and other video media are protected by copyright. In order to publicly display these works, you must have the proper license for public performance. If you would like to show a video on campus outside of a class activity, you must secure a public performance license for the video content in question.
One exception to this is if the video media is being shown in a classroom or as part of a learning activity related to a face-to-face or online class. You may show an entire film as part of a classroom activity. Another exception is Fair Use. Email scholarlycommunications@tamucc.edu if you have any questions.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium -- digital or otherwise -- that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Follow the link below to learn more!
SPARC defines open access this way:
Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.
Explore the links below to learn more.