Open Access Guidance and Resources
This Policy applies to all staff, research students and fellows of the 91app engaged in research solely or in collaboration with others. It also applies to individuals, contractors and collaborators conducting research on behalf of the University, regardless of location. It does not apply to researchers from federal colleges.
Comprehensive guidance is available below to all researchers of the University, who wish to publish open access. If still in doubt, please contact open.research@london.ac.uk.
Guidance and resources
The various routes for Open access explained:
- Green open access – [UNIVERSITY PREFERENCE] (also referred as self-archiving): all outputs are freely available, deposited in a repository (either an institutional or subject repository). Publishers stipulate the version of manuscript that can be self-archived and the length of embargo period following publication before the paper is made open access.
- Diamond Open Access - Outputs published via a Diamond model are Open Access but do not require the author or reader to pay a fee. Many function without → – that is, no costs arise for authors, but rather the journal is financed from institutional funds, by or, for example, by library consortia in which various libraries come together. This model, which is also known as platinum open access
- Gold open access – The final published version of the work is free to access immediately upon publication. It will often have clear re-use rights (for example: through a Creative Commons licence) which go beyond what is permitted by copyright legislation. A publisher may charge a fee for this route by applying an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Processing Charge (BPC) to the individual work.
- Through Read and Publish agreements: The agreements are ways for publishers to move from traditional subscription journals to an open access model. These agreements exist between institutions and publishers whereby open access costs are covered by the Institutional subscriptions. APCs are therefore not charged to publish in these journals:
- A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. This status typically requires the payment of a publication fee to the publisher in order to publish an article open access, in addition to the continued payment of subscriptions to access all other content.
- Transformative journal: a journal that has committed to transitioning to fully open access within a specified timeframe.
- Bronze open access articles are free to read only on the publisher page, but lack a clearly identifiable license. Such articles are typically not available for reuse.
- Research outputs: mean all forms of scholarly publications: from peer-reviewed publications to scholarly editions (defined as an edition of another author’s original work or body of works informed by critical evaluation of the sources, such as earlier manuscripts, texts, documents and letters), often with a scholarly introduction and explanatory notes or analysis on the text and/or original author, as well as exhibition catalogues, scholarly illustrated catalogues, or even software or datasets.
- Peer reviewed publications:
- peer-reviewed articles, including reviews and conference papers, that are accepted for final publication in either a journal, conference proceeding with an International Standards Serial Number (ISSN), or a publishing platform
- Long-form publications include monographs, book chapters and edited collections.
- Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM): The ‘agreed version’ is the final peer-reviewed full-text version of the research output without the publisher formatting (i.e.: prior to typesetting by the publisher); (also known as author manuscript or final author version)
- Version of Record (VoR): The version of a journal article or long-form publication that has been reviewed, typeset and edited and then made available by a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article “published”.
- Creative Commons Attribution (CC) licence allows users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial use, as long as attribution is given to the creator and any changes are indicated.
- Research Data: Data that are collected, observed, generated, created, or obtained from commercial, government or other sources, for subsequent analysis and synthesis to produce original research results.
- Data access statements, also known as data availability statements, are expected to be included with publications to describe where the data associated with the peer reviewed output is available, and under what conditions the data can be accessed.
- Rights Retention Strategy (and the Rights Retention Statement) (RRS): A new funder-led initiative that supports the self-archiving route to open access. It aims to allow researchers to publish in a subscription journal (and hybrid journals) and also to make their manuscript available open access through self-deposit.
- The “rights” under consideration here are those rights that an author has in their work as the author of the work, typically referred to collectively as “copyright,” expected to encompass both economic rights and moral rights. The University considers their researchers as the copyright owners of works they create. As such, the RRS applies to the author and/or their employer regardless of who owns the copyright given that both individuals and institutions have obligations to a funder’s grant policies.
- The author (or their institution) through RRS can keep or ‘retain’ their copyright, rather than transferring it to the publisher or to some other entity, by adding a statement (a Right Retention Statement) to their manuscript upon submission of their outputs.
The available options at the 91app have been summarised as below.
1. Peer-reviewed articles
Please review the University workflow which outlines your option when publishing journal articles: UOL workflow – journal articles [PDF}
The University’s principal route to Open Access (i.e., free to view and download via an online publication platform, publishers’ website, or institutional repository) for peer-reviewed articles and long-form publications is via self-archiving in the institutional repository (SAS-Space)- the so called ‘green’ route:
- Peer-reviewed articles must be made open access through a publication record along with the Author Accepted Manuscript, or the Version of Record (where a publisher allows), as soon as possible upon publication. (please see definitions above for AAM or VoR).
- Researchers who wish to publish in their journal of choice, including subscription journals (and hybrid journals) can also make their manuscript available open access through self-deposit, by adding a Rights Retention Statement (RSS) to the manuscript upon submission.
The Rights Retention Strategy is a tool for researchers to retain sufficient rights on their scientific articles so that they can make them available in immediate open access, regardless of the distribution model of the journal in which they are published. This is achieved by including the following Rights Retention Statement in the funding acknowledgement section or in the first footnote or endnote and in any cover letter/note of all submissions of your (co-)authored papers to journals, conference proceedings, and edited collections:
“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version of this paper, arising from this submission.”
You will need to continue to deposit the author accepted manuscript of your papers and chapters into SAS-Space as soon as possible after acceptance but before publication. By including the Rights Retention Statement, you will retain inter alia the right to disseminate your author accepted manuscript by depositing it in a repository and providing open access from the day of first online publication under a licence.
Please note that you will automatically apply that CC BY licence to your author accepted manuscript via your contract of employment with the University. There's nothing you have to do. But you will need to notify your publisher that a CC BY licence has already applied by including the above Rights Retention Statement.
2. Long form publications
Please review the University workflow which outlines your option when publishing long-form outputs: UOL workflow – monographs [PDF]
- Long form publications must be available within a maximum of 12 months of publication.
- Additional guidance has been put together on Long form publications.
3. Which licence to use?
The OA version is expected to be published under a.
4. A data availability statement
A data availability statement (also sometimes called a ‘data access statement’) is expected, even where there is no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.
It tells the reader where the research data associated with a paper is available, and under what conditions the data can be accessed. They also include links (where applicable) to the data set. Examples of what to include in the statement can be found on .
5. Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Research output should have a unique identifying marker such as a when deposited in the institutional repository.
6. University affiliation and source of funding
Should be clearly acknowledged on all research outputs. Check any conditions or requirements that the journal or publisher has before depositing the output’.
7. Exceptions
The exceptions include the following:
- Deposit exception: issues with multiple author decision, security risks on author or it would be unlawful to deposit output (some deposits can be closed to the public as well as search engines).
- Access exception: The publishers, particularly those based outside the UK, do not offer an OA option; The output depends on the reproduction of a third-party content for which the open access rights cannot be granted; The publication concerned requires embargo period that exceeds the stated maxima and was the most appropriate publication for the output. The publication concerned actively disallows open access deposit in a repository and was the most appropriate publication for the output.
- Technical exceptions: System failures.
- Particular exemptions for long-form publications include: where the only appropriate publisher is unable to offer an open access option that complies with this policy; where the output is the outcome of a UKRI Training Grant and publication occurs beyond the lifetime of the grant.
This Policy does not apply to the following long-form outputs:
- Trade books - The decision of whether a book should be considered a trade book or an academic monograph, is at the discretion of the author and publisher.
- All types of fictional works and creative writing.
8. E-thesis deposit
- Under the University regulations, after the examination has been completed and before the degree is awarded, successful candidates must upload the final examined version of their thesis, including corrections, to the institutional repository.
- The electronic copy is expected to exclude all relevant copyrighted images or other material when made available online, with a note directing interested researchers to the paper copies retained in the relevant institutional library/depository.
- Any embargo request, including requests permanent embargo made by Postgraduate research students, require formal approval.
UOL transitional agreements
Transitional Agreements with publishers aim to combine journal subscription costs (library) and APC costs (authors), and transition to a single funding model paid by institutions for OA services provided by journal publishers.
Transitional agreements typically include unlimited APC-free publishing in hybrid journals. Some transitional agreements also offer APC-free publishing in gold journals, while others will provide a discounted APC for gold journals. Publishing routes and additional charges will differ between deals and publishers.
The 91app, via Senate House Library, currently provides access to transitional agreements with the below publishers. It is best to contact SHL directly to explore publishing in a journal covered by a transitional agreement.
Publisher | Agreement active | HYBRID | GOLD |
---|---|---|---|
ACM | 2024 | Y | Y |
De Gruter | 2024-2025 | Y | Y |
IEEE | 2024 | Y | N |
Elsevier | 2024 | Y | 15% discount |
Taylor & Francis | 2022-2023 | Y | National cap |
Wiley | 2024-2025 | Y | National fund |
SAS Library Champion of Open Access (contactable at open.research@london.ac.uk)
Other library resources available
- University of Glasgow, .
- .
- University of Oxford, .
a. SAS-Space
.
b. Other repositories
OpenDOAR is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. You can search and browse through thousands of registered repositories based on a range of features, such as location, software or type of material held. Try it out for yourself.
Output can be deposited in many different repositories at the same time. A 91app branded output must be deposited in the institutional repository.
ճ (UoLPress) is a collaborative, nonprofit and predominantly open access university press. They are an expert and creative publishing partner for authors and organisations, with a mission to ‘open up humanities research’.
UoL Press publishes across humanities disciplines, including History, Literature, Languages and Cultures, Classical Studies, Law and Art History (amongst others), and is expanding its publishing programme into areas such as Digital Humanities. They publish around 20 titles a year including monographs, edited collections and short-form books (20–50,000 words) and are developing new book series in areas which will push the humanities in new directions.
Their focus is to support open access publishing, and their open access titles have now been read by over a million people worldwide in more than 200 countries and territories globally. All UoL Press books (including open access titles) go through a rigorous peer review process to ensure they are high-quality.
UoL Press supports open access publication via Diamond, Gold and Green routes, the details of which can be found in the Press’s .
Funders supporting open access via a block grant
Funders allocate Universities a block grant to enable researchers to comply with their OA policy. The University may place further restrictions on how these funds can be used to prevent overspending.
Authors should note that some journals are not compliant with the requirements of the OA policies of these funders - Article Processing Charges (APCs) cannot be paid in such circumstances.
- The 91app is in receipt of an OA block grant which is being used to support the University research infrastructure and its compliance with the UKRI OA policy
Other funder open access policies
Find more information. Always check the terms and conditions of your own grant to ensure compliance.
- European Commission Horizon 2020: The detailed legal requirements on open access to publications are contained in article 29.2 of the
- European Commission Horizon Europe: The detailed legal requirements on open access to publications are contained in article 17 of the .
- Leverhulme Trust: The Leverhulme Trust does not currently require either mandatory archiving, or open access publication for research outputs. However you are permitted to include .
Open access training organised by Emma Gallon (UoL Press) and Frances Pinter (CEU Press; SAS): session run annually in February as part of the SAS Research Training . A recording is available on the UoL Press Training .
- RESHAPED training course on OA [coming soon]
- Programme of relevant events can be accessed via .
Other available resources
- UKRIO:
Ask a question: open.research@london.ac.uk