DIAL.pr - OA Policies

This section give information about policy for open access publication of all partners of DIAL project :

Some updates on Open Access (academic year 2018):

1. UCLouvain researchers financed totally or partially from public funds (including FNRS scholars and researchers) must, according to the decree of the French community of May 3, 2018, put their articles in open access on an institutional repository, in this case for UCLouvain : Dial.
2. This applies to publications in a periodical published at least once a year. For other publications (monographs, conference proceedings, theses, etc.), Open Access remains at the author's discretion, although it is strongly encouraged by UCLouvain.
3. An embargo period remains possible: 12 months for the human and social sciences, 6 months for the other sciences.
4. The version to be uploaded to Dial is the Post-print version: i.e. the version after peer-review, but before the publisher's layout.
5. Important point: any promotion, appointment, allocation of research credit by the FWB may only be based on the list generated by Dial for the evaluation of periodical articles covered by the decree.
6. This Community decree is reinforced by a recent intervention by the Belgian legislator in July 2018, which establishes a real right of Open Access for scientific publications financed by public funds for the benefit of the authors of these publications. The text also provides for the possibility of embargo periods similar to those of the decree (6 or 12 months depending on the sector). This legal right prevails over any contract concluded with a publisher that prohibits or restricts the right to open access beyond the legal conditions.

OpenAccess brochure

UCL OA Policy:

The Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) supports "The Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access (ID/OA)". This requirement means that :

• Any publication from researchers or academic staff must be at least archived into a repository (Ex. DIAL.pr for UCL) for works from 2013. 
• Access to the institutional repository will, by default, closed or restricted, unless the publisher/agregator allows open access.
• The UCL repository (DIAL.pr) offers to users the possibility to request a copy of works that are with restricted access 
• Author will do all it it can to putt its works in Open Access 

... At its regular meeting of July 2, 2012, the 'Conseil Académique de l'UCL' has decided to mandate both recording bibliographic data and the full-text deposit from January 2013. So the deposit of full-text only concerns publications produced from January 1, 2013. It belongs to the sectors to eventually extend the obligation to deposit the full text 2008-2012. The type of access to the full text of these publications will be opened in accordance with the rules applicable to copyright and legal editor...

So why UCL decided to make the mandatory deposit from 2013 ?

By requiring registration of bibliographic and full text submission, the UCL authorities has four main goals :

1. Create a comprehensive and long-term preservation of the university's scientific publications.
2. Ensuring access by the academic community to publications of its own researchers.
3. Increase the visibility of the university and its researchers around the world.
4. Facilitate access to scientific information in general.

Are there penalties for non-compliance with the UCL's OA Policy ?

According to the Conseil Académique, sanctions may be applied at the level of internal evaluation and the granting of allocation of institutional resources dedicated : "The Conseil Académique confirmed that the internal evaluation of researchers will consider, from the 1 January 2013, as duly filed within the system publications and the deposit will also be one of the criteria of institutional resource allocation grant dedicated to research". However, researchers are reminded that it concerns publications produced from 2013.

If you want to read more information about the mandatory deposit at UCL, please go the dedicated FAQ

USL-B OA Policy:​

 The Conseil de Recherche of the University Saint-Louis-Brussels make mandatory

• the encoding in the DIAL.pr institutional repository of all the scientific publications of the scientific and academic members of the ULS-B,
• and the submission of full-text for those published since 2003.

These full-text versions are available free of charge as soon as possible, taking into account any requirements of the publishers. If an embargo of more than 18 months is required by the publisher, the author informs the Président of the Conseil de Recherche.

Failure to provide full texts in open access does not exempt the author from encoding his publications in the institutional repository, especially since these encodings can be used in scientific reports or evaluations.

The full text that must be submitted refers to the PDF version of the author's final text before publication. This copy must mention the coordinates of the edited version. The submitted version can be the “publisher” version, if an agreement with the publisher allows it.