Yerevan State Univeristy adopts an Open Access Policy based on the following principles

Article 1
General Principles
1. Yerevan State university Open Access policy aims at providing free online access to the outputs of publicly funded research supported.
2. Open Access to scientific results is based on the recognition of knowledge as a public good and the social and economic benefits derived.
3. The efficient and wide dissemination of scientific outputs constitutes a significant part of the Yerevan State University role as a public research organization.
4. The increase in the visibility of the scientific outputs resulting from Open Access leads to an increase of the impact of publications.
5. Deposit in the institutional repository ensures curation, long-term preservation, and further dissemination of the scientific output of Yerevan State University and access to them for the conduct of internal and external evaluation.

Article 2
Definitions
• A Publication is defined as the peer-reviewed published (or under publication) work of researchers based in the institution (indicatively this comprises articles, monographs, book chapters, reports, conference presentations).
• A Researcher is any member of the research staff of Yerevan State University, of all levels and irrespective of their employment status.
• An Institutional Open Access Repository is Yerevan State University Repository established at Yerevan State University according to international standards, containing digital content from various disciplines and providing advanced tools for search, navigation and Open Access to its digital collections.
• A Digital copy is the electronic copy of the publication in its final stage (either the author’s final manuscript after peer review or the publisher’s version).
• Research Data is the data (such as statistics, results of experiments, measurements, observations, interview recordings, images, etc.) used to validate the results presented in scientific publications.
• An Embargo is the period during which a publication can be ‘closed’ while deposited in the repository (i.e. the publication is not openly available).
• Metadata are the descriptors used for describing, tracing, use and management of the deposited item (indicatively: title of publication, author(s), institutional affiliation, name of journal where the publication has been accepted).
• A suitable Repository is one that provides Open Access to scientific results, enables citation through permanent identifiers (DOI or other) and provides qualitative metadata (including acknowledgment of research funding) based on accepted guidelines and standards.

Article 3
Policy
From 2022 Yerevan State University:
1. Requires its researchers to deposit in the institutional repository a digital copy of the full text, as well as the related metadata of all publications (author final manuscript of publisher version) upon acceptance for publication. Researchers are held responsible for the timely deposit of their publications in the institutional repository.
2. Requires the full text of all publications referred to in 1 to be made openly available upon deposit or as soon as possible following deposit. In all cases, metadata should be openly accessible. For peer-reviewed publications, the deposited item can remain closed for up to 6 months (or for up to 12 months for publications in the social sciences and humanities). For monographs deposit referred to in 1.B remains mandatory, but access is closed until publisher embargo elapses.
3. Requires the deposit of the abstract of the publication to be made openly accessible in the case of ‘closed’ publications with the aim to increase their visibility.
4. For purposes of individual or institutional evaluation of the research output of the institution and its members, [name of the institution] will only consider as publications those whose metadata and full texts are deposited in the institutional repository according to the requirements stated above.
5. Encourages researchers to deposit the research data supporting their publications in the institutional repository or in any other suitable Open Access Data repository.
6. Encourages its members to retain ownership of copyright and to licence to publishers only those rights necessary for publication.
7. Encourages researchers to deposit in the institutional repository publications authored prior to the date of effect of the current policy and make them openly accessible whenever possible.

Article 4
Support and Monitoring of the Open Access Policy

Yerevan State University

1. Enables the adoption of Open Access through the organization of seminars, events, awareness-raising actions, and education and training on Open Access issues.
2. Monitors policy compliance by comparing the content of the repository with information gathered from indexing services and through data on the use (access and downloads) per publication/ department/unit/ institute etc.
3. Provides the necessary human resources and the required infrastructure for the support of the Open Access policy.
4. Provides links and interoperability with other databases like Google Scholar.