In the open access repository policy you define an overall vision for your institutional repository, a collection policy, a submission policy, the content types that you will be including in your institutional repository, a deposit licence and policy and a re-use licence for your institutional repository, take-down policies and embargoes, a preservation policy, and rights, responsibilities and repository services, etc.
When you have a publicly stated open access repository policy for the permitted re-use of deposited items or for such things as submission of items, long-term preservation, etc, it simplifies matters for organisations wishing to provide search services, which in turn increases the visibility and impact of the repositories.
Institutional open access policy may be voluntary (i.e. it requests that researchers make their work open access in the institutional repository) or mandatory (i.e. it requires that researchers make their work open access in the institutional repository). The (openoasis.org/images/stories/Sale%20study%20summary%20pdf.pdf) evidence [PDF] shows that only mandatory policies produce the level of self-archiving from researchers that fill repositories. So, although voluntary policies were initially popular, new institutional policies are now usually mandatory. Mandatory policies, on the other hand, do bring the high level of self-archiving that provides a university with the increased visibility and impact that open access promises.
The first university-wide mandatory policy was implemented by Professor Tom Cochrane, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, in 2004. Since then, growing numbers of universities and research funders have followed suit. A list of policies developed by universities, research institutes and research funding agencies is maintained at the University of Southampton. As this is a self-registering service, supplemented by the list owners adding policies that they have discovered serendipitously, this list under-represents the actual number of policies in existence.
Mandatory policies should be coupled with a clear case explaining why the university wishes to collect its research outputs in one place – for internal record-keeping, for research assessment, as a central locus for access to the outputs of any individual, group or department, and so on. In this way, a mandate becomes a non-controversial part of institutional operations.
(from (openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144&Itemid=338) Institutional Policies section in the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook)
Please read about the main issues to take into account in developing an institutional open access policy (openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145&Itemid=298) here. You can also read
- MedOANet Guidelines for implementing Open Access policies: provide concise and targeted guidance for a harmonized approach towards policy development: http://www.medoanet.eu/news/medoanet-guidelines-implementing-open-access-policies-available-7-languages;
- UNESCO Open Access Policy Guidelines: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/publications-and-communication-materials/publications/full-list/policy-guidelines-for-the-development-and-promotion-of-open-access/;
- Harvard Open Access Project’s institutional policy guidelines cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies;
- Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf;
- Open access policy options for funding agencies and universities written by Peter Suber, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #130, February 2, 2009 (it starts with the choice-points facing funding agencies (1-12), and then looks briefly at the choice-points which only arise for universities (13-18)).
- The (openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=148&Itemid=314) Optimal Open Access Policy for Institutions.