Open Access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. In most fields, scholarly journals do not pay authors, who can therefore consent to OA without losing revenue. In this respect scholars and scientists are very differently situated from most musicians and movie-makers, and controversies about OA to music and movies do not carry over to research literature.
What is open access? Nick Shockey and Jonathan Eisen take us through the world of open access publishing and explain just what it's all about.
CREDITS: Animation by Jorge Cham Narration by Nick Shockey and Jonathan Eisen Transcription by Noel Dilworth Produced in partnership with the Right to Research Coalition, the Scholarly Publishing and Resources Coalition and the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students
There are several routes into Open Access but the most common are Gold & Green, both of which are supported by the University.
Here is a quick definition of those terms:
Gold Open Access is when an author publishes in an Open Access Journal. Many publishers require the author to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) for immediate open access. The term "Hybrid Open Acess" is also sometimes used to describe an open access model where a journal provides gold open access only for those individual articles for which an open access publishing fee has been paid.
Green Open Access is when an author archives a version of their work in an open access repository, including disciplinary repositories, institutional repositories (e.g. eResearch@Ozyegin), or personal webpages. Publisher policies on self-archiving and versions are available in either the SHERPA/RoMEO or on the publisher or journal website (usually more up to date than SHERPA).
Platinum or Diamond Open Access is Gold Open Access for free. Also known as Platinum Open Access is a Open Access journal: there is no cost to the author or reader, because these journals are often sponsored by universities, government information centers, or even groups of researchers.
Bronze Open Access is free to read and/or download on the publisher’s website, but it is not published under an open licence that permits sharing or reuse. Publishers can choose to make an article freely available to read (with no APC), but they can also end the free availability at any time.
A large proportion of the research is supported by public funds. For publication assessed by editors, researchers do not receive payment or royalties for their published articles.
Once the work is published, libraries pay large amounts for subscriptions to journals. This means that people affiliated with these institutions can access the research but those without an affiliation cannot.
Open access removes this handicap and makes it available free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. Open Access literature benefits many groups:
For authors: OA raises your online presence leading to increased visibility and impact of your research through expanded readership.
For researchers: OA provides free online access to peer-reviewed research.
For universities: OA increases public visibility of research being undertaken at the university.
If your research is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) (the FP7- or the Horizon Europe-programme), or by Turkey is The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), you need to be aware of Open Access requirements.
European Research Council
From 2012 and onwards, the European Research Council (ERC) has defined requirements for Open Access in most grant agreements. Here is an overview of the rules related to Open Access that apply to the different types of ERC grants/work programmes
TÜBİTAK
Management, storage, archiving, curation and digital preservation of the publications and the research data originated from the projects which have been carried out or supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey constitute the framework of TUBITAK’s Open Science Policy.
You may be required to comply with the requirements of cOAlition S funding bodies, and publish your paper as an Open Access article in a journal which complies with the guidelines laid out in the Plan S documentation.
What is Plan S?
“Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funders. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.”
Retrieved from <https://www.coalition-s.org/about/>
The European Research Council supports Plan S, which means that some or all of the principles are likely to become part of Horizon Europe (the programme to succeed Horizon 2020). If they do, you will need to comply with the Plan S principles if you receive funding through Horizon Europe.
As a copyright owner, you can also license your work with open licenses, Creative Commons. Creative Commons licenses allow you to share your work in less restrictive ways than those imposed by copyright legislation while the user of your work can read the license immediately and make the use of it accordingly. Many universities and other institutions and government bodies have mandated that their works be licensed with Creative Commons or equivalent Open Access terms of use. Creative Commons is a 'some rights reserved' licensing system allowing creators to release their works in less restrictive ways than those imposed by copyright legislation.