VTCSOM Library & Learning Commons: Publishing
What is Open Access?
Open Access refers to published work that is made freely available, without barriers to access, such as price or special permission. Virginia Tech is committed to Open Access, and passed Policy 13000 governing Open Access on March 22, 2021. Please see our guide on VT's Open Access Policy and our general guide to Open Access for more information.
Any NIH-funded research papers must be published Open Access, as of April 7, 2008. See the National Institutes of Health website for more details about this policy.
University Libraries at Virginia Tech are here to help you navigate the various forms of Open Access publishing and satisfy Open/Public Access requirements, whether you choose to publish in an Open Access journal, or take advantage of Policy 13000 and deposit your work into VTechWorks.
Contact vtcsomlibrary@vt.edu with all your publishing questions. If we do not have the answer for you, we will connect you with the best expert to help!
More Information on Open Access
What do we mean by "gray literature?"
Gray literature encompasses a wide variety of documents and materials, and its definition varies, depending on academic discipline. Generally, gray literature is anything outside of a peer-reviewed, published work. For our purposes, when we talk about grey literature we are referring to things like:
- Conference Papers
- Research Reports
- Course materials
- Research Posters
- Lectures
This is not an exhaustive list, but it should provide a good point of reference for the sorts of things that we would like to help you preserve.
Let us help you get more out of the gray literature that you produce!
Please contact us at vtcsomlibrary@vt.edu with your submission. We can provide you with multiple levels of assistance, depending on what you would like to accomplish. We can assist with something simple, like uploading your work to VT's institutional repository, VTechWorks; we can assist you with linking your work in VTechWorks with your Elements profile; or we can partner with you to take your course materials or lectures and turn them into interactive learning modules.
What is VTechWorks?
VTechWorks is the university's online repository, providing access to as well as preserving research and scholarship produced by faculty, students, and staff at Virginia Tech. VTechWorks contains a wide variety of scholarly works and items of cultural or institutional relevance, such as:
- peer-reviewed articles
- theses and dissertations
- locally published journals
- president's state of the university addresses
- strategic plans
- department newsletters
- capstone projects
VTechWorks is also an important repository in terms of providing Open Access articles to researchers at Virginia Tech and in the wider scholarly community. For more information, see the library's full Guide to VTechWorks.
We want to assist you with getting your scholarship into VTechWorks. Contact us at vtcsomlibrary@vt.edu so we can help:
- evaluate your work (is it appropriate for the digital repository)
- upload your work into VTechWorks
- link your work to your profile in Elements
- with any other questions you may have
