Open Access Repositories and Self-Archiving

A repository is an online database used by institutions and organizations to capture, preserve, and provide access to the intellectual output of a scholarly community. Self-archiving ensures the long-term digital preservation of a work, as well as increasing its visibility on search engines such as Google, and boosting its potential impact.

With the University of Colorado at Boulder’s repository, CU Scholar (effective April 22^nd, 2015), all faculty grant The Regents of the University of Colorado a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to their scholarly journal articles and conference proceedings. View the full Policy.

The University of Colorado Boulder Open Access Policy helps faculty retain the rights often signed over to a publisher when signing an agreement. An optional author addendum may be added to a publication submission to further reserve rights to self-archive.

Many U.S. federal funders have generated public access policies for their work. Make sure to review your obligations for sharing your federally funded research.

Visit CU Scholar

Additional Information and Resources on Depositing your Work in a Repository

General information and advantages of depositing at CU Boulder:

•  Terms of Use for CU Scholar

Resources regarding copyright and self-deposit:

• SHERPA-RoMEO – directory of publisher policies on self-archiving
• SPARC Author Addendum – how to retain rights in your author agreement

Federal Funder Sharing Policies:

• NIH Public Access Policy
• SPARC Article Sharing Requirements by Federal Agency

Subject Repositories

Subject Repository List – List of open access repositories that accept research based on discipline rather than institution

Selected Subject Repositories:

• ArXiv.org - Contains over 500,000 e-prints in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics and non-linear science. Maintained by Cornell University.
• E-Print Network (U.S. Department of Energy)
  Provides access to numerous repositories in life sciences, engineering, environmental sciences, mathematics, physics and other disciplines relevant to the Department of Energy.
• PubMed Central
  National Institutes of Health’s publicly accessible repository of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
• Humanities Commons – platform for humanists to share research and teaching materials and cultivate interdisciplinary connections. Maintained by MLA.