Open Access Publications Policy
Open access literature is digital, online, free-of-charge and free of most copyright and licencing restrictions (Peter Suber, http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm). In effect users can view open access material online without having to pay a fee to do so.
Whilst the main focus for Open Access academic publishing tends to be the journal articles, the Open Access model can also include conference proceedings, working papers and monographs. The traditional academic journal publishing model where publishers organise peer-review, print and circulate research articles, in return for which the academic author signs over copyright of the article to the publisher, and the reader of the article must pay a fee to view it in compliance with strict conditions on re-use of the article's contents in now changing due to a number of factors:
- Institutions, funders and authors recognise that there is a direct link between increasing access to the outputs of publicly funded research and impact, http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
- Research Funder* requirements stipulating that the research outputs of publicly funded research must be made available without restriction at the time of publication or within a very short timeframe thereafter, usually 6 months from the date of online publication.
*For example, the 7 RCUK funding councils now stipulate that research outputs resulting from research they have funded must be available on an open access basis within 6 months of publication with some exceptions. Other research funders such as the European Commission, The Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK have similar policies on open access to research outputs
Routes to Open Access
There are two recognised routes to publishing research articles so they are freely available online on an open access basis, namely making the article available to view on the journal's website or making a version of the article available to view in an Open Access repository.
Open Access via a Journal Platform:
- Pure Open Access Journals:
These are academic peer-reviewed journals with content that is Open Access by default under licence. A variety of business models support this approach from free to publish; the traditional subscription based model and the payment of article processing charges (APCs) to the publisher. It is important to emphasise that the pay-to-publish option is not a prerequisite for submission. A list of no-fee Open Access journals is available here: http://www.eigenfactor.org/openaccess/
Well established Open Access publishing platforms such as Biomed Central and PLoS journals support their business model through a blend of institutional subscriptions and APCs. Traditional academic publishers now have a number of pure Open Access journal offerings based on the business model pioneered by SpringerOpen, http://www.springeropen.com/ and other examples include Elsevier Open Access journals and Wiley Open Access journals. A list of Open Access journals is provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals.
- Hybrid Open Access Journals:
These are traditional e-journals which offer a pay for publishing option to make individual papers Open Access on publication on the journal's website. The journal is supported by two revenue streams: library subscriptions and article processing charges (APC) payments.
In this case a subscription to the journal title is still available, but the publisher also offers the author the facility to pay an APC when an article is accepted for publication so that it can be made Open Access immediately on publication. Examples of publishers who provide hybrid journals include Wiley OnlineOpen and Elsevier Open Access.
Open Access articles are available free to view on publisher websites, the licences attached to these articles may permit sharing and re-use of the article content, which is not usually the case with journal articles published in traditional subscriptions based journals. Each publisher has their own open access licence which should be read by authors at Queen's and those accessing the articles.
Articles submitted to Open Access journals and to hybrid journals where an APC is selected are peer-reviewed in the same way as articles submitted to traditional subscription based journals, that is they are accepted for publication on their own merit. The APC is only paid when the article is accepted for publication.
Open Access via an Open Access Repository Deposit:
The academic author has a research article published in the traditional manner and an appropriate version of the article, which complies with the publisher agreement, is made available in an online open access repository. Examples of these repositories are institutional repositories like the Queen's Research Portal or a subject based portal such as the physics open access portal, arXiv or the life sciences portal PubMed Central and/or Europe PubMed Central. Self-archiving of research publications is free, the open access repositories provide access to bibliographic details (metadata) and, where allowed, the full text of research outputs produced by academics. Currently 68% of publishers formally allow some form of self-archiving.
The version of the journal article to be made available in the open access repository must comply with all publisher copyright regulations as outlined in the Publisher's Agreement. It is usually the author final version post peer review that is made available.
The Sherpa RoMEO database gives details of publisher's policies regarding self-archiving of journal articles in Open Access repositories.
Funder Mandated Open Access Policies
In July 2012 the UK government accepted the findings of the Finch report. Dame Janet Finch chaired a group that was established to find ways to expand access to research publications. The Finch Report recommended that the UK move towards Open Access publishing for research outputs with the long-term aim that all UK Government funded research outputs be available on an open access basis.
Research Councils UK (RCUK) Open Access Policy
Following the government's acceptance of the Finch Report, RCUK (Research Councils UK) updated their Open Access policy. The policy stipulates that from 1 April 2013 any research papers being submitted for publication arising from all RCUK-funded research are to be made Open Access. The policy applies to peer-reviewed research papers, which acknowledge Research Council funding, that are submitted for publication in journals or conference proceeding.
The policy states, 'Researchers, as the generators of all of the research papers and responsible for much of their peer review, are expected to publish any peer-reviewed research papers which acknowledge Research Council funding in journals that are compliant with the RCUK policy on Open Access..'.
The RCUK stipulate that Open Access to research outputs may be achieved by publishing those outputs in peer-reviewed academic journals that allow:
- Gold Open Access through payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). This route allows for unrestricted access to the publisher's final version of the paper (the Version of Record) on the journal's website, without restrictions on re-use. The CC-BY license must be used in this case.
Or
- Green Open Access: where a publisher does not offer the Gold Open Access option, the journal must allow deposit of Accepted Manuscripts that include all changes resulting from peer review (but not necessarily incorporating the publisher's formatting) in other respositories (for example the Queen's Research Portal), without restrictions on non-commercial re-use and within a defined period. With this option, no Article Processing Charge (APC) is payable to the publisher. Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo is 12 months.
The RCUK use a decision tree which shows how the embargo periods should be applied in regard to their Open Access policy. This decision tree can be viewed in the RCUK Open Access policy.
From 1 April 2013 RCUK will issue research institutions with a block grant which will be used to help defray the cost of article processing charges (APCs) to ensure research publications will be open access via the pay-to-publish route (Gold), this is the preferred RCUK route. From this date it will not be possible for academic authors to include the cost of APCs in individual RCUK grant applications.
The RCUK have produced a FAQ document about their policy.
HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for England
For the Ref 2014 assessment there are no requirements for the research outputs involved to be made available on an Open Access basis.
In February 2013 HEFCE started a consultation process whereby they are seeking advice on the guidelines they should adopt regarding Open Access to research outputs that will be submitted for the Ref assessment, 2014-2020.
The European Commission and the European Research Council
In 2008, the EC and ERC instigated an Open Access pilot for research funded under the FP7 (Seventh Framework Programme for Research programme). This gave authors the option of 'Green' self-archiving of final manuscripts in institutional or subject based repositories of the 'Gold' author pays route. It is expected that this approach will be extended to Horizon 2020, which is the European Commission's new programme for research and innovation to run from 2014-2020.
The US National Institutes of Health
Effective from April 2008, the US National Institutes of Health mandated that any peer-reviewed articles arising in whole of in part from NIH funding must be deposited in PubMed Central.
Open Access at Queen's
All Queen's academic staff must record the bibliographic details of their publications in the university's current research information system, known as PURE, this metadata is made freely available online in the Queen's Research Portal. In order to guarantee compliance with the various approaches to Open Access mandated by difference funding bodies, Queen's recommends that all institutional authors deposit the final manuscript, post peer-review in PURE on acceptance for publication. The submitted paper will be made Open Access on publication provisional on the following:
- If funding has been secured for an article processing charge (APC) to publish in an Open Access journal (either a pure open access journal or a hybrid journal), a copy of the paper will be held in PURE. The manuscript version will be archived and not released for public distribution.
- Publisher embargoes will be applied to individual submissions. Once the embargo date has passed, the manuscript will be released automatically to the Queen's Research Portal.
- Rights information and licences related to individual papers will be recorded on each output's PURE metadate record and made public via the Queen's Research Portal.
Queen's Research Portal staff will ensure compliance with all copyright requirements and embargo periods stipulated by publishers. There are no restrictions on research output types which can be submitted to the Queen's Research Portal and content is expected to include journal articles, edited book chapters, monographs, major reports, conference papers and patents where allowed.
It is essential that Queen's authors are aware of funder requirements regarding open access to the research outputs they produce as a result of funded research. If the funder stipulates that the research output must be made available on an open access basis then the author must ensure that the journal in which they want to publish their article permits open access either in an open access repository (the Green Route) or is an open access journal or a journal which has a paid open access option (the Gold Route) and the cost of the article processing charge is secured. Where an author decides to take the paid open access route (Gold), that version of the paper will be associated with the publication record in the Queen's Research Portal.
