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The UC Publication Management System

The UC Publication Management System was established in order to assist authors in managing their publications as well as being in compliance with the UC Open Access Policies. 

What is the University of California publication management system?

The University of California publication management system is a website that allows you to view and manage all your publication citations in one place. The system automatically searches multiple different databases for papers that you have authored.

Why do I need to verify my publications?

The automatic database harvesting system searched for your name, but it’s not perfect. Some of the harvested papers in your account may have been authored by someone else with a similar name, or perhaps there was another error. To make sure that the citations in the system were actually authored by you, we ask that you log in and click to verify the publications that you authored (you only have to do this once!).

Why do I need this? I already have a CV.

This system will help you to easily comply with the University of California Open Access Policy (more information below) by offering quick and easy access to eScholarship (more information below). Also, this system benefits the research community by giving UC Merced a more complete and accurate view of the scholarly activities of the whole university.

Do I need to appoint a delegate?

Probably not. A delegate will be able to verify (or cancel) your authorship on your publications, and will be able to upload papers to eScholarship on your behalf (more information below). In general, library staff are not able to act as delegates: library staff do not have enough familiarity with faculty members' publication histories to be able to verify authorship; nor do library staff have access to author manuscript files for upload to eScholarship. If you want to assign a delegate, it should be someone who is intimately familiar with your work – for instance, you may want to give your assistant or a departmental administrator access to your account.

What is Open Access?

Open Access is a movement in the scholarly community towards making research papers freely available online. Learn more about Open Access here.

What is the University of California Open Access Policy?

In recognition of the increasing importance of Open Access, the Academic Senate has implemented the UC Public Access Policy. It requires that faculty deposit the full text of their research papers into eScholarship (see below), where their work will be made freely available to the public.

"The policy adopted by the Academic Senate reserves rights for the faculty to make their articles freely available to the public in an open access repository. It does this by granting a copyright license to the University that survives regardless of any later agreements authors may make with publishers. The policy doesn’t transfer copyright to UC or allow UC to sell the articles. It also doesn’t prevent faculty from transferring copyright to publishers...You should read, and keep, any agreement you sign, but understand that the UC OA Policy is intended to preempt or augment these publisher default terms. This is true whether the publisher requires a copyright transfer or not. If your publisher isn’t requiring you to opt out by getting a waiver, you are fully within your rights to take advantage of UC’s policy." (source)

Read the text of the UC Open Access Policy here.

Read the FAQ about compliance with the Policy.

What is eScholarship?

eScholarship is the University of California’s publications repository. It contains full texts for research publications for all disciplines. To comply with the UC Open Access Policy, you’ll upload your research publications to eScholarship. It’s also important to upload the right version. "Use the latest version you have that hasn’t been formatted by the publisher. If you used Microsoft Word to write the article, it will probably be a Word doc. If the version you’re looking at has the look and feel of the journal and the publisher’s copyright notice on it, it’s probably the wrong version." (source)

If you need help with the uploading, or still have questions regarding the copyright on your publications, contact oapolicy@ucmerced.edu.

For additional information on the other features eScholarship provides, visit our eScholarship page.

Do I have to put my papers in eScholarship?

No. If your research publications are already freely available through other methods, just provide the link to the full text of your paper (rather than uploading a file of the full text) in the UC publications management system. For instance, you’d choose this option if you published in an Open Access journal (most OA journals charge author fees, so if you paid a fee to publish, your article is probably freely available online already). You’d also probably want to provide a link if you’ve already deposited your papers into an open subject repository such as arXiv, or a funder repository such as PubMed Central.

Sometimes publishers may require a waiver from the UC Open Access Policy, or you may want to opt-out for other reasons. Click here for more information on opting-out with a waiver.

How can the library help?

If you have any questions, feel free to contact oapolicy@ucmerced.edu. Here are some of the things we can help you with:

We can walk you through the process of verifying your publications in the publications management system.
We can advise on copyright issues, author agreements, negotiation with publishers, and related topics.
We can walk you through the process of uploading your work to eScholarship.

If you’re interested in the concept of claiming your publications and making your research more visible online, contact us! We can assist you in getting an ORCID identifier - a persistent identification number that disambiguates authors with the same or similar names, ensuring that your research is always connected to you! Additionally, ORCID identifiers are connected to a number of automated publications systems (including this one), making it easier for you to share your body of work with funders, institutions, and other researchers.


If you'd like more information on the UC Open Access Policy, the UC Publication Management System, eScholarship, or other matters related to scholarly publishing, please schedule a consultation: