University of Maryland Equitable Access Policy
Advancing equitable, open access to the University's research and scholarship.
At its meeting on April 6, 2022, University of Maryland's Senate voted to approve a new institutional policy that will advance equitable, open access to the University's research and scholarship. In alignment with the University's land-grant mission and its social justice values, the new policy, "Equitable Access to Scholarly Articles Authored by University Faculty," aids in the removal of price and permission barriers for anyone seeking to access th peer-reviewed scholarly work of UMD Faculty.
The policy was spearheaded by UMD PACT, a campus-wide working group sponsored by the University Library Council, the Office of the Provost, and the Division of Research.
The Equitable Access License
Under the Equitable Access Policy, Faculty members grant certain nonexclusive rights in their scholarly articles to the University of Maryland. This grant of nonexclusive rights, called the Equitable Access License, allows the University to distribute peer-reviewed versions of the articles free-of-charge to the general public, through DRUM, the University of Maryland’s online institutional repository. The policy provides waiver and embargo options to help protect authors’ freedom and control over their work.
Benefits of the New Policy
The Equitable Access Policy fosters open scholarship by providing public access to research previously limited in reach by publishing fees and subscriptions. Under the policy, more of the timely research and scholarship of the University's faculty members will be available freely to those who seek it, and more of this research will be found, read, and cited. The policy preserves authors' freedom to publish in the journals of their choice and enhances authors' rights to redistribute and reuse their work for research and teaching.
Make Your Work Open
Scholarly articles that fall within the scope of the University’s Equitable Access Policy should be provided to the University Libraries to be made available to the public in DRUM (Digital Repository at the University of Maryland). To support UMD faculty, this website provides resources to help you work with your publisher, deposit accepted manuscripts to DRUM, and complete the optional and automatic waiver process.