In 2012, the University of Luxembourg Executive Team decided to make deposit in ORBilu mandatory:
The University of Luxembourg requires all University members to:
This obligation applies only to those publications made while employed at the University of Luxembourg. Therefore, if an author started on 1 Jan 2011, he/she is required to deposit everything published from 1 Jan 2011 onwards.
The mandate goes on to describe the responsibilities of the primary author:
It is the primary author's sole responsibility to deposit their works as well as to assign to them the appropriate level of accessibility (open access, open access with embargo, restricted access) in the University's digital repository. For restricted access deposits, the digital repository will permit the author to fulfil individual e-print requests.
The primary author is also solely responsible for the quality of the data provided in the bibliographic reference.
The mandate also states the University's wish to support the Open Access movement within the confines of copyright and publisher contracts as well as to clearly indicate that authors are free to publish where they best see fit:
The University of Luxembourg encourages all University members to:
This deposit does not restrict in any way the choice of publisher or the means of publication.
The mandate also includes a statement about how the Executive Team will make use of the publications in ORBilu:
As of 1 January 2014, only publications referenced in said repository and deposited following the rules laid out above will be taken into consideration for:
As mentioned in the paragraph above, one of the requirements for the promotions procedure is to have all publications which are to be taken into consideration in ORBilu.
Based upon the references entered by University authors, the Executive Team is able to create an entire bibliography of the publications of its researchers and ease access to the full-text of recent publications. It will no longer be necessary to spend time at the end of each year to produce, and format, such lists. They can be generated simply and easily from ORBilu.
Practically speaking, ORBilu could be used to:
ORBilu does not define evaluation criteria nor compare disciplines. It does however provide statistics which show the visibility our authors are achieving.
Increasing the availability of full-text peer-reviewed research articles broadens dissemination, increases use and enhances professional visibility of scholarly research which in turn can lead to increased citations and usage.
(For more information on the Open Access citation advantage see: opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html and www.istl.org/10-winter/article2.html .)
By building a full bibliographic reference of the University’s entire scientific production, the University’s reputation and impact, as well as that of its authors, will be strengthened.
Not all potential readers of scientific works can subscribe to the publication it appears in. Increasing journal subscription prices and budget limitations will see alternative access routes to research papers (such as Open Access copies) more widely utilised.
Some publishers allow authors to make their papers publicly available only if it is mandated by the institution or funder.
In a word, no, the UL mandate does not require you to make your work openly accessible. It does however encourage you to do so and Open Access can provide many benefits to you.
ORBilu is a record of all research activity at UL.
Practically speaking, the mandate requires deposit of full-text copies of peer-reviewed journal articles and papers from conference proceedings published since 1 January 2009. Authors are also required to submit the bibliographic references of all their scientific production published since 1 January 2009.
This obligation applies only to those publications made while employed at the University of Luxembourg. Therefore, if an author started on 1 Jan 2011, he/she is required to deposit everything published from 1 Jan 2011 onwards.
They are also encouraged to submit full-text copies of all scholarly creations, regardless of the year of publication, including, but not limited to, book sections, reports, working papers, conference presentations, etc
Still have questions? Send an e-mail at orbilu@uni.lu.