If you have an account in the Researcher Metadata Database (RMD), you can use that account to submit an open access URL for a scholarly article. This satisfies Penn State’s open access policy. For basic information about RMD, please see Using the Researcher Metadata Database.
Our system tries to find these URLs automatically, but sometimes it misses one. For more information, see My article is already open access.
If you follow the link for a publication in your publications list in RMD or in an open access policy reminder email, it will take you to the page for that publication in RMD. You can use the “Submit a URL” section of that page to provide an open access URL to the Libraries.
- Locate an open access URL for the accepted manuscript or final published version of the article. This could be a link to the article on your personal website, in an open access repository (e.g., a funder repository or a coauthor’s institutional repository), or an open access copy on the publisher’s website. Please use caution when entering links to publisher’s websites, which are often behind paywalls. You may not notice the paywall if you are on the Penn State network or logged in to your Penn State account. However, the paywall still prevents readers from accessing your work. To confirm that an article on a publisher’s website is open access, look for a Creative Commons license on the article or a description of the journal as “open access.” You can also test for a paywall using a private window in your browser. If you have questions about whether a URL is open access, please contact the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright.
- Enter the URL in the Open Access URL field and click “Submit URL.”