School of Environmental Sciences establishes open access policy, press release, November 26, 2009.

… Researchers in the [University of Guelph] School of Environmental Sciences commit to making the best possible effort to publish in venues providing unrestricted public access to their works. They will endeavour to secure the right to self-archive their published materials, and will deposit these works in the Atrium [IR].

The School of Environmental Sciences grants the University of Guelph Library the non-exclusive right to make their scholarly publications accessible through self-archiving in the Atrium institutional repository subject to copyright restrictions.

This policy applies to all appropriate scholarly and professional work produced as a member of the School of Environmental Sciences produced as of the date of the adoption of this policy. Retrospective deposit is encouraged. Co-authored works should be included with the permission of the other author(s). Examples of works include:

• Scholarly and professional articles
• Substantive presentations, including slides and text
• Books/book chapters
• Reports
• Substantive pedagogical materials such as online tutorials

Works should be deposited in the Atrium as soon as is possible, recognizing that some publishers may impose an embargo period.

This policy is effective as of 11/05/2009 and will be assessed a year after implementation.

According to ROARMAP, this is the first non-library institutional or departmental OA commitment in Canada. (The libraries at Calgary and York have policies for their staff.)