Skip to main content

Colours of Open Access

By

International Open Access Week 2018 celebrates 10 years of promoting open scholarship worldwide. Let’s go back to basics and see how the publishing landscape has changed over the last decade.


Open Access was defined in the Finch Report (2012) stating that ‘research outputs arising from publicly funded research should be freely accessible at the point of use with minimal if any limitations on how they can be used’. In fact, Open Access is all about reaching wider audience and increasing the impact of your research. According to Universities UK Report on transition to Open Access (2017) the proportion of UK-authored, open access articles increased from 12% in 2012 to 30% in 2016. Currently 37% of research outputs in UK and 25% worldwide are freely available at the publication date.

The movement supporting discoverability and accessibility of research outputs sparked a change in policies of the HEI, funders and most scholarly publishers. Two options for making publications open were set out:
  • Gold – requires payment of article processing charge (APC), the article becomes freely available at the publication date and is published under the most permissive copyright licence (CC-BY). Some funders like UKRI, COAF and Wellcome Trust provide additional pots of money (block grants) to support their researchers in making research outputs open access via gold route.
  • Green – no payment required, authors deposit accepted version of the manuscript (not a publisher version) in Institutional Repository (such as Leicester Research Archive) ensuring its discoverability, but there is usually delay in making the manuscript accessible (embargo period). The length of embargo period is specified by the publisher/journal.

The journals can support one or both options of open access described above and depending on their policy they can be classed as:
  • Open access only journals – supporting gold OA only (without green option). Authors must pay the APC, but there is no need for subscription to the journal for anyone willing to access the articles. 
  • Hybrid journals – supporting both green and gold OA, leaving the choice to the author and funds available. The downside is the articles published as green OA will be hidden behind paywall for the length of the embargo. Please bear in mind that most HEI will have subscription packages which remove the need to pay for access.

OA guidance, requirements and policies can be (and are) confusing and information overload for many of us but the good news is – there is help available! The Research Services team at the University of Leicester provides support for all researchers across the institution, if you have OA related query - please do not hesitate to contact us or visit our Open Access Website for more information.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

How to use SNL for financial research

By
Following the successful demonstration of Mergent Online , we have another database for you this week: SNL . SNL is a global financial database providing news, macroeconomic data and financials and analytics of banks and insurance companies. It replaces Bankscope, the database we previously used for this area. The data in SNL would be of interest for anyone researching finance, banking or insurance.   There will be two demonstrations of the new database SNL on  Wednesday 22 nd  February Session 1: 12.00 – 1.00 University Library IT Room 1 Session 2: 1.30 - 2.30.University Library IT Room 1 There is an opportunity to do some hands-on practice in these sessions as well receiving tailored support. If you would like to attend please contact  Andrew Dunn  with your details and any training requests. For more information on how to use and register for SNL follow this link:  http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/fi...
Read more

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar

By
You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar if you have a Google Account. Go to Google Scholar and sign into your Google Account. Conduct your search. Click on the Star icon (Save) under each reference you want to export. Then click on My Library in the top, right of the screen. Select all the references and click on the Export option: Click the Star/Save Icon Choose Export Option To Export into EndNote Choose the EndNote option. Open the EndNote file that is created. The references should automatically import into EndNote. To Export into RefWorks Choose the RefMan option. Save the RIS file that is created. Login to your RefWorks account. Click on the plus (+) button. Choose Import References. Add the RIS file you just saved. Set the file import option to RIS - Reference Manager. Click import and your references will be imported. --- Good Practice Tip: Always check that all the reference information you need has been...
Read more

Search Tips: Phrase Searching and Proximity Searching

By
Phrase searching Normally when you put two words into a database search it will find those two words anywhere in the title/abstract/keywords: It will do an AND search = diabetes AND mellitus If you want to force the database to do a phrase search then enclose it in “speech marks” “diabetes mellitus” = those words next to each other, in that order Most of the main literature databases we subscribe to at the University of Leicester support phrase searching using speech marks, as do the search engines Google and Google Scholar. However, Scopus treats phrases in "speech marks" as loose phrases, so to do an exact phrase search in Scopus use {curly brackets} around the phrase instead. Extra Tip: Make sure when typing in speech marks that you use the double speech mark symbol " rather than typing in two apostrophes. Proximity (Adjacency) Searching Finds one keyword within a specified number of words of the other, in any order: Diabetes ADJ4 “Type 2” = will find Diabetes withi...
Read more