Historically, academic research has been published behind paywalls and subscriptions by private publishers. In our age of digital transparency, a publishing model called open access is increasingly the focus of sector efforts to disseminate research freely, fairly, and so that it might have maximum impact. 

Universities are playing a big part in the move towards open access, working with academics and publishers to openly share research at the point of use. Typically, this means that instead of readers paying a fee to access research outputs, a fee is applied at the point of publication - an article processing charge – generally referred to as an APC.  

Open access is most widely available for articles in journals. Many journals operate a hybrid model, where articles can either be published through the paywalled model or the open access (APC) model. 

Open access publishing of books and monographs is less widely embraced, but a growing area.

When your work is accepted for publication, you will usually be prompted to select your open access preferences; you will need to know whether the journal is offering an open access route that applies to you ahead of time. This means checking funder requirements, institutional agreements with publishers, and each journal’s publishing model when selecting a journal. 

Before submitting your work to a journal, you can check its open access policy with the Directory of open access Journals (www.doaj.org) or on their individual websites. 

Some journals operate a predatory business model: remember to ‘think, check, submit’ – more information about avoiding pitfalls can be found here: www.thinkchecksubmit.org/journals. 

Assessing the quality and impact of research is a complex task. The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics has established a framework for expert assessment of research and can be found here www.leidenmanifesto.org. The University of Greenwich is committed to improved use of research metrics and encourages its researchers to ensure they are familiar with their effective application and do not over-rely on metrics such as impact factor. More information about the University of Greenwich’s approach to responsible use of metrics can be found here: www.gre.ac.uk/docs/rep/vco/responsible-use-of-metrics.  

Open access stipulations from funders are becoming more common. Researchers are responsible for checking their individual funding agreements to ensure that they are compliant. Some funders require researchers to make their outputs open access, usually under a Creative Commons CC BY license. 

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 funding and performing organisations. 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. You can learn more here: www.coalition-s.org. 

Researchers funded by UKRI or a subsidiary Research Council may be able to benefit from funding the University of Greenwich receives to support open access. You can contact the Scholarly Communications Team (gala@gre.ac.uk) to find out more. 

www.journalcheckertool.org is a helpful website for checking which publishing options are supported by your funder’s open access policy.

Read & Publish agreements are collectively bargained by the UK higher education sector’s technology consortium – Jisc. They are sometimes referred to as transitional or transformative agreements. Coverage from an agreement means that University of Greenwich authors can publish gold open access with the APC covered in a range of journals and publishers. You can read more about Jisc’s approach to negotiating these deals here: www.jisc.ac.uk/routes-to-open-access-transitional-agreements. 

Eligibility Criteria 

In most Read & Publish agreements, eligible authors must be the corresponding author and affiliated with University of Greenwich. Affiliated authors are usually defined as enrolled students and teaching and research staff employed or accredited to the Institution. 

If you would like support in checking the eligibility of your submission, please contact the Scholarly Communications Team (gala@gre.ac.uk). 

Included journals can be seen here:

While the University of Greenwich does not have a central fund for APC payments, your individual school, faculty, or research centre may have access to funding, and it is worth checking with them directly. 

Green open access is the process of self-archiving in an institutional or subject repository. When working with a paywalled publishing model, researchers can upload their author’s accepted manuscript – AAM for short – to a repository like GALA, and the repository then takes responsibility for ensuring perpetual dissemination of this version of the research, which has been peer-reviewed and revised but not formatted or edited by the publisher. 

You can see detailed instructions on how to archive your work with our repository GALA here: www.libguides.gre.ac.uk/gala

Gold open access is the immediately accessible publication of research, usually through a publisher in exchange for a fee (APC). Gold open access articles are usually made openly accessible through Creative Commons licenses (often CC BY, the most open kind). 

You may also hear about Diamond open access, which is when articles are published completely freely in journals that embrace an open access model as a founding principle with no fees for authors, readers, or institutions. Diamond open access is not currently widely adopted. 

To be compliant for submission to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), which is next assessed in 2029, authors need to upload all journal articles and conference proceedings from a publication with an ISSN to GALA within 90 days of acceptance.