Open Access and Open Research

What is Open Access and what is Open Research?

Open Access (OA) means making research publications freely available so anyone can benefit from reading and using research.

Open Access can be more than making research available to read, but also allowing others to re-use that research. For example, allowing the content to be analysed using text mining or reused for commercial purposes. 

Open Access is part of a wider Open Research movement to encourage free exchange of knowledge and resources, encourage transparency and reproducibility, encourage collaboration between non-traditional researchers and communities with research, and to share research data, software and code openly, all with the aim of solving the world's research problems.

Act On Acceptance!

As per the University of Huddersfield Open Access Policy, academics must add their journal and conference articles (published with an ISSN) to Pure as soon as possible once they have been accepted, and no later than 3 months after acceptance. Authors should also add other types of research output to Pure as soon as possible after acceptance. The word 'acceptance' refers to the final acceptance after all recommended peer-review changes have been made, acknowledged and accepted by the journal. If an article has been provisionally accepted, but still needs revisions, the 3 month window will not begin until final acceptance.

Types of Open Access publishing

Gold Open Access

Some journals contain only open access articles whereas others, known as hybrid journals, may offer a mix of open and subscription content. In both cases, there are costs associated with publishing which need to be met.

These costs, usually paid through article processing charges (APCs), may be paid by authors or subsidised by a third party such as a funding council.  The article is made available immediately. This route is known as Gold OA. 

Funders often prefer, or may even require Gold OA. Authors are encouraged to check their funder policies before publishing. 

Research and Enterprise administer the UKRI OA block grant that can support Gold OA for articles that are produced as a part of an UKRI-funded grant. View this page for further information and the application form.

We also have a number of APC discounts and deals with specific publishers. Contact the Library via openaccess@hud.ac.uk for the latest information and criteria to access these.

Many publishers will promote Gold OA to authors and encourage payment of APC charges. However, authors are encouraged to look at the APC cost and compare it to the citation potential of the article, as Green OA may represent a better value option.

Green Open Access

Green OA involves publishing in a traditional subscription journal as usual, but articles are also 'self-archived' in a repository (Pure) and usually made available after an embargo period set by the publisher. No charges are paid.  

If publishing under this route you must ensure that you deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) within 3 months of acceptance in Pure. If you have any questions about what option to choose regarding your publisher agreement, for example CC license types or what the embargo details are for your journal, contact the Pure Research Outputs Team oa@hud.ac.uk and we will be happy to help.

• Although the AAMs of articles published via Green OA are often subject to an embargo period, the article will still be available on the publisher’s website to any institution or individual with a subscription to the journal.
• Green OA can often represent better value for money; it’s free!
• Most OA compliant outputs at UoH are published via Green OA.
• Many funders allow outputs to be published Green OA; check conditions before publishing.
• To be OA compliant, AAMs must be text-based and searchable documents (docx, pdf) to allow for text-mining and discoverability. Scanned images of documents are not acceptable. 

Meeting the right requirements

Before publishing:

• Please ensure you read the University of Huddersfield's Open Access Policy.
• Research publishers and funders may have different requirements. Check funder policies before publishing.
• Authors are encouraged to check funder CC license types and, if publishing Green OA, check the length of emabrgo periods offered by your preferred journal to ensure they are compliant with funder policies. Jisc have a SHERPA service that can help you identify these policies, but please email the Pure Research Outputs Team with any questions oa@hud.ac.uk. 
• Consider APC costs vs the citation potential of the article, and funder requirements if applicable, when deciding on Green OA vs Gold OA.
• If publishing Gold OA, ensure you have secured funding for the APC payment BEFORE agreeing with a publisher.
• Read the OA FAQ webpage.

During and after publishing:

• If you have not done so already, ensure that a record of your article exists in Pure. 
• AAMs must be added to Pure within three months of acceptance to be OA compliant. Please attach the AAM to the record that you create in Pure and save the record as 'For Validation'. The Research Outputs Team will then check the record and contact you if we need further information. Only once the checks have been performed will the record be validated and appear on your public Pure profile.
• Take note of your acceptance date so the Pure Research Outputs Team can add this to the Pure record. This date is essential for calculating OA compliance. If you have an email from the journal or publisher confirming acceptance, please save this email to the record you create in Pure.
• If you have already secured funding from your School to pay APC charges, ensure you have the correct contact details to forward the invoice.
• If you have already secured funding from Research and Enterprise for an UKRI-related APC, please forward the invoice to oa@hud.ac.uk. 
• If you are experiencing problems accessing Pure or need further guidance, contact the Pure Research Outputs Team oa@hud.ac.uk. 

Pre-prints

The University of Huddersfield encourages the use of pre-prints as a mechanism for transparency and informal peer-review from the scholarly community. There are many pre-print servers to choose from. Some are dedicated to a certain field, while others accept articles from any field. Some of the more common pre-print servers are listed below, but this is not an exhaustive list:

• ArXiv (physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics)
• bioRxiv (biology)
• medRxiv (medicine)
• EarthArXiv (earth and planetary science)
• SocArXiv (arts, humanities, law, education, social and behavioural sciences)
• PsyArXiv (psychological sciences)
• ScienceOpen (medicine, information and library science, geosciences, chemistry, engineering and life sciences)
• SSRN (multidisciplinary)
• Zenodo (multidisciplinary)
• GitHub (software and code)