Institutional academic archives aim to store all academic resources such as books, articles, theses, papers, reports, which are produced within the institution to which the institutional archive is affiliated, in a digital environment at international standards, and to make them available to Open Access in accordance with copyrights in order to increase their impact. There is no obstacle to the storage of publications produced by universities in institutional academic archives. In fact, it is a legal obligation to store these publications in institutional academic archives.

 Publications of researchers working within a state or foundation university are stored in institutional academic archives within the framework of the Higher Education Law No. 2547 and the contract made by the researcher with the workplace. Articles 4 / c, 12 / c, 42 / c and 42 / d of the Higher Education Law numbered 2547 are as follows:

 Article 4 - Purpose of Higher Education: 

"c) As higher education institutions, to become a distinguished member of the scientific world by conducting high level scientific studies and research, producing information and technology, disseminating science data, supporting progress and development in the national field, cooperating with domestic and foreign institutions, and to contribute to universal and contemporary development.

 Article 12 - Duty of Higher Education Institutions: 

"c) To disseminate scientific data that will increase the life standards of Turkish society and enlighten the public opinion through verbal, written and other means." 

Article 42 - In-house Scientific Control: 

“c) Each faculty member is obliged to present the list of his scientific researches, publications and lectures, seminars and practices he has directed, and a copy of the papers in scientific congresses held in the country and abroad to the rector's office through his unit manager. A typewritten copy of the unpublished works is given. The rights granted to the owner of the work by the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works are reserved. 

“d) (Amended: 17/8/1983 - 2880/23 art.) A special archive is kept in universities and the Council of Higher Education for the scientific publications of academic staff.

 The storage of the publications of the employees within the institution in the institutional academic archives of the universities is a duty given by the Higher Education Law No. 2547. For this reason, there is no obstacle to storing publications produced on behalf of a university, regardless of the medium, in institutional academic archives. As it is known, institutional academic archive directives or policies in universities are prepared on the basis of articles 4 / c, 12 / c, 42 / d and 42 / c of the Higher Education Law No. 2547.

Researchers working within the body of state or foundation universities work depending on the institution to which they are affiliated within the framework of certain regulations. Therefore, they cannot transfer the copyright of their research results (articles, papers, books, etc.) to a publishing house without permission from their institution. Contracts made with the publisher cannot be considered valid due to the fact that the employment contract is not taken into consideration in the transfers made without permission from the institution. Researchers should pay attention to this issue in their contract with publishers.

When storing publications in institutional academic archives, the most important issue to be considered is to determine the type of access. That is, the stored broadcast should be stored with one of the appropriate Open Access, Embargoed Access, Limited Access or Closed Access options. Storing a publication in the institutional academic archive does not prevent the rights of the researcher arising from the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works as stated in Article 42 / c of the Higher Education Law No. 2547. As a result, there is no obstacle to storing the works of a researcher working under a university in accordance with the copyright of the institution's academic archive system.

 How to Check the Copyright Status of the Works to be Stored in the Institutional Archive?

The copyright and personal archiving policies of the journal publishers can be checked and stored in the SHERPA / ROMEO list. Currently, approximately 78% of publishers allow self-archiving.

The use of Creative Commons licenses, of which the authors determine the usage rights of their publications, are encouraged. Creative Commons Project, by defending the “some rights reserved” statement instead of “all rights reserved”; instead of preventing any use of the publication by others, its use for educational and research purposes, if necessary, to provide a basis for other studies, etc. It offers four different license options indicating that they are allowed.

In our country, the rights related to the protection of scientific, intellectual and artistic products are secured by the Law No. 5846 of 1951 on the Protection of Intellectual and Artistic Works. According to this;

Article 23 - “The right to rent, lend, sell or distribute the original or duplicated copies of a work exclusively belongs to the owner of the work. The right to use the copies reproduced abroad with the permission of the author and to benefit from them by dissemination belongs exclusively to the owner of the work ... "

Copyrights apply to all kinds of works that have been published before, that are in the process of publication or that will be published for the first time in the archive covered by the archiving policy. Since the law on the protection of intellectual and artistic works has been legitimized for educational and research-based information purposes, it is already allowed to store and use information sources in an electronic environment to serve these purposes.

 Article 33 - (Amended: 21/2/2001 - 4630/17 art.) “Representation of a published work in all education and training institutions for the purpose of face-to-face education and training without any direct or indirect profit motive is free, provided that the author and the name of the work are disclosed in the usual way. " In the light of the aforementioned information, in accordance with the legal process, the right to use these works belongs to the authors in the following two cases where the archiving work takes place.

The owners of the work can carry out the transfer of their works to the electronic environment in accordance with the copyright. Today, the number of publishing houses that support the open access movement is increasing day by day. You can refer to the "Sherpa / Romeo Publisher Copyright Policies" web page to access the copyright policies of publishers around the world.