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Open Access: What is Open Access?

“Open access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”

Peter Suber, Director of the Harvard Office of Scholarly Communication (2004), Open Access.

Defining OA

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The Open Access movement dates back to the early '00s,  although discipline-specific initiatives began earlier.  One of the first formal declarations of the movement's principles was the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002),  defining "world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds" as a public good.

 

Different routes to open access publishing are categorised in the following way:

  • Gold – publishing your output on a platform which provides immediate e-access for everyone, free of charge, with an open licence. Publishers recoup their costs by imposing an 'article [or book] processing charge', paid by the author, their funder or their employer. Some publishers operate a 'hybrid' model, with open and paywalled articles on the same platform.

  • Diamond - similar to the gold route, but without any cost to the author.  Diamond publishers cover their costs through sponsorship by academic institutions, research organisations, charities or commercial bodies. 

  • Green – providing open access to the author's accepted manuscript or published output in a searchable archive, commonly known as a repository, maintained by the author's institution or a scholarly society/professional body.  The publisher may impose an embargo on open access to the file, normally in a range of 6 to 24 months.

Creative Commons logoCreative Commons is a widely-known licensing scheme for open access works. It enables authors and other rights-holders to specify whether readers are permitted to share, modify and/or commercialise the work without further permission.  For more information about the appropriate open licence for your work, start from the Library's guide to Copyright.

Support for OA at the University of Hull

The University of Hull Open Access Policy was last updated in April 2023,  "recognising open access publication as a valuable component of dissemination for research outputs".

The author's responsibilities include:

  • Retain copyright where this doesn't conflict with any contractual obligations.
  • Record all research outputs in the CRIS (currently Worktribe), and deposit the full text.
  • Act on any funder or sector-wide policies relating to deposit deadlines and licence terms.
  • Consider issues of privacy, security and IP before sharing the output.

The University will "provide the relevant systems and guidance to facilitate deposit, and support engagement with this process".  The University will take responsibility for preserving records and outputs deposited, including making the works public in the University Repository "with an open licence where funder/publisher terms permit".


The University provides services and resources to support authors at several key stages of the publishing process:

What's in it for authors?

Open Access to your research publications can bring many benefits.

updateWiley and Springer both carried out analyses in 2021 demonstrating increased readership, social media attention and citation for open access papers published in their journals.  (Their financial interest in deriving income from article processing charges should be noted here).

Open Access to your Thesis

Many universities preserve their research students' theses in an institutional repository, to maximise the audience for this work.  They may also archive the printed and bound volume in the Library.  The British Library's EThOS database aggregates thesis records from all UK university repositories, to help readers find works of interest, regardless of where the author carried out their research.

mortar board iconAfter the viva examination and any corrections, University of Hull PhD theses are preserved in Repository@Hull.

Guidance about depositing your thesis in the Repository can be found on the Doctoral College Sharepoint site (for Hull students only).

You may embargo your thesis for up to 5 years if your research is commercially sensitive, or you plan to adapt it for publication. Be mindful that it's rare for a scholarly publisher to reject a journal article or book proposal on the basis that it's related to a thesis which is open access, as they understand that early career researchers benefit from the exposure.  Check your target publisher's guidance for authors.

 

If you received external funding for your PhD, your funder may mandate an open licence for your thesis, in order to increase the potential for public engagement.  Check the terms of your funding award.

Open Access to Research Data

An increasing number of publishers require authors to make the data which underlies their papers openly available, to maximise the applicability of their research findings.

The international open access advocate CHORUS has created a directory of publisher policies on data availability, updated annually.

Information for University of Hull researchers about options for making your data open:

Who Can Help?

Staff who administer the Library's Periodicals collection can advise on the terms of the University's OA publishing agreements and the availability of financial support from research funders: periodicals@hull.ac.uk

Library staff responsible for collection management in Repository@Hull (Worktribe) can assist with record editing and file deposit:  repository@hull.ac.uk

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