The effect of Open Access mandate strength on deposit rate and latency

Access-denial because of the high cost of journal subscriptions is a major obstacle to the progress of research, universities and research funders need to adopt mandates that require their researchers to make their published papers Open Access (OA) by depositing them in their Institutional Repositories. To measure the effectiveness of these mandates MELIBEA has ranked and weighted OA mandates according to their specific requirements, and assigned them an overall score for strength. There is a weak but significant positive correlation between the MELIBEA overall weighted score for mandate strength and the Public Access (PA) deposit rate. If the policy stipulates that deposit is mandatory “For internal use” (e.g., research performance evaluation) deposit rate is significantly higher for PA and RA (Restricted Access) combined; deposit latency for PA alone is also significantly shorter. Finally, if the policy requires that the deposit must be done “At time of acceptance,” deposit rate is significantly higher for combined PA and RA deposits, compared to requiring deposit “At time of publication” or “Unspecified.” This effect is significant only for 2011 and almost significant for all years combined.