Open Access: what you need to know

Open Access at Ulster University

Welcome to the Open Access web pages. These pages introduce Open Access to research outputs, answer questions about the topic and provides guidance on how to make your research outputs openly accessible.

Check out our Open Research web pages for a broader discussion of open research practices from pre-registering your study to open source code and open data.

What is Open Access?

Open Access is about sharing research freely and openly for the benefit of the public, researchers and universities. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the copyright-holder. Open Access is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major Open Access initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature highlight its importance. Open Access is about removing barriers; price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions).
(Suber, 2004, CCBY 3.0 US)

How can Open Access benefit researchers?

Open access brings real benefits to researchers:

Enhancing the visibility of your research as well as your research profile;
Increasing the number of citations for your paper;
Providing the public with access to publicly-funded research outputs;
Increasing the reach and impact of research;
Creating new opportunities for partnerships and collaborations;
Opening up vital research to those working in developing countries, often excluded from access be the cost of journal subscriptions.

REF Open Access policy

Guidance on the Open Access Policy for the next REF has not yet been published. In the interim period, the REF2021 OA Policy remains applicable.

The REF Open Access policy requires the full-text of journal articles and published, peer-reviewed conference proceedings (with an ISSN) be deposited in an open access repository within 3 months of date of acceptance. The version of the publication required is the Author’s Accepted Manuscript.

There are limited exceptions of course, but a non-Open Access compliant paper means a non REF-eligible paper.

The quick link for Researchers and Editors below will provide you with a flowchart of the essential steps within PURE for REF Open Access compliance. You will also find 'step by step' guides and videos for depositors and editors. For other pertinent resources, look into the Open Access Resources below.

Quick link: PURE Depositors & Editors

Rights, permissions and licensing

When publishing in Open Access journals, authors (or institutions) often retain the copyright of their manuscripts and the journal applies a Creative Commons licence (typically CC BY). The CC BY licence allows for the distribution, remixing, tweaking, and building upon the licensed work, including for commercial purposes, as long as the original author is credited (Wild and Wilson 2013). It is the most liberal of the six CC licences in comparison with, for example, CC BY-ND (no derivatives, no modifications) and CC BY-NC (no commercial use).

The 'Guide to Creative Commons for Scholarly Publications and Educational Resources' seeks to provide guidance on choosing the right licence by addressing several frequently asked questions and common concerns expressed by researchers about the use of Creative Commons licenses.

Resources on licensing your research data can be found on the Licensing and Copyright page of Ulster's Open Research website.

When choosing where to publish - Be Aware of Predatory Journals

Predatory journals are a global threat.

They accept articles for publication — along with authors’ fees — without performing promised quality checks for issues such as plagiarism or ethical approval.

They are driven by self-interest, usually financial, at the expense of scholarship and are characterised by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.

Predatory journals: no definition, no defence

Advice for spotting fake journals

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) have published a Predatory Publishing discussion document (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.6) which outlines useful warning signs of fake journals.

Amongst COPE's advice to authors are the following suggested actions:

Identify trustworthy journals through the 'Think.Check.Submit' campaign.
Verify spam invitations made by email, text message or telephone call to submit manuscripts or attend conferences.
Check journal names and ISSN codes are real ones. An ISSN is an unique identifier for a journal and can be checked on the ISSN portal.
Check that researcher profiles on institutional websites mention claimed editorship of journals.