Frequently asked questions - Open Access

No.

Publishing in a (pay-to-publish or free-to-publish) Open Access journal constitutes the Gold Road towards Open Access. Open Access works published via the Gold Road are immediately openly accessible and are usually protected by an open licence, such as Creative Commons.

However, there is an alternative way to publish in Open Access, namely the Green Road. The Green Road refers to the parallel publication of a version of the manuscript in an open repository, or self-archiving. Open repositories can be institutional, as our own SERVAL, or disciplinary. The publication is often delayed (embargo period) and allowed only for the author accepted manuscript (AAM), also known as postprint. This is the manuscript accepted for publication (post peer-reviewed), but before all copyediting by the editor. There are no costs for researchers to follow this road.

Below you can find a scheme that shows the available roads to Open Access.

With the development of OA, parasitic or « predatory » OA journals have started to exploit the « author pays » model. The authors, generally solicited by email, are invited to submit articles, which are systematically accepted after publication fees are payed for, regardless of the scientific value. One must note that this problem exists only for Gold OA journals.

Jeffrey Beall, of the University of Colorado, created in 2008, scholarlyoa.com, a website that contained a list of potentially predatory journals based on 52 criteria. This list was used as a standard until its discontinuation in January 2017. An archived version is still available and other sites have tried to carry the torch. It is also possible to check the Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ, to evaluate the credibility of an OA journal.

The recently launched cross-sector initiative called « Think. Check. Submit » is a campaign seeking to help researchers identify journals of quality for their research. It consists of a simple check-list that researchers can use to evaluate journals or publishers. This initiative is an excellent way of fighting against « predatory » journals.

Yes.

Though article OA is well developed, monograph OA is still in its infancy and practices are much less standardised than for journals. Nevertheless, more and more publishers allow for the OA publication of digital versions of books from the moment of publication (Gold OA). The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) lists academic, peer reviewed Open Access books. OpenEdition is another Open Access Book platform mainly for books in French. Both are excellent sources to get to know the publishers who already publish books in Open Access. The costs of Gold Open Access to books is financed by the SNSF for all swiss-based researchers.

It is also possible to gran Open Access to books through the Green Road, or the self-archiving of the manuscript and its opening after an embargo. In this case, researchers are expected to negotiate with publishers on a case-by-base basis. UNIL researchers can request funding for Green OA for books through the Fonds de publications UNIL.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines academic freedom as "the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate."

From this point of view, Open Access mandates that allow for a mix of Open Access scenarios (namely, a mix of Green and Gold Open Access) should not limit the academic freedom of researchers.

Indeed, by allowing both roads, researchers can choose the most appropriate outlet for their works, and subsequently follow the necessary road to grant Open Access to them. Gold OA allows for the publication in OA journals and books, whereas Green OA allows for the parallel publication of the article in a subscription journal and the author manuscript (or post-print) in an institutional repository.

Simply fill in the form below with your details!

In principle, yes, but you must first check which rights you've transfered to your editor.

Use this checklist to know where to find this information and to know if and how the deposit is possible.

Open Access increases the visibility of your work. There are several studies showing the visibility and international reach advantage of Open Access articles and monographs.

In general, Open Access works are viewed and downloaded more than the toll-access counterparts.

The same can be said in terms of the impact of Open Access publications. SPARC Europe has a curated list of studies showing the citation advantage of Open Access articles in all disciplines.

Springer's report on the Open Access effect on monographs shows that the same can be said for Open Access books.

The deposit of an author preprint in an open repository constitutes a proof of first publication. Not all journals allow the deposit of preprints before submission, so authors should inform themselves before doing so.

In most disciplines, conventional publishing implies the transfer of most rights to the publisher. Therefore, the author needs to get a license from the publisher in order to be able to open their own work through Green Open Access.

With Gold Open Access, authors retain all copyright and grant a license to the editor to allow them to publish their work. The type of license varies depending on the type of work.

The geographical and institutional access gap is closed thus delivering the the knowledge where it helps the most.

Open Access publications have zero access costs (excluding the cost of connecting to the Internet) and some forms of Open Access also have zero publication costs for authors.

About 75% of UNIL researchers identify the democratisation of research as the main driver for publishing in Open Access.

Open Access can be given to all kinds of scientific documents, such as articles, conference proceedings, thesis, course materials, preprints, reports, posters, etc, allowing knowledge to be disseminated outside of the conventional article format.

The evolution of the publication landscape has made of Open Access the new standard. ROARMAPshows that there are currently 83 funder Open Access policies and 703 research organisation Open Access policies worldwide.

If you would like more information on the issues and drivers behind the Open Access movement, watch the introductory video below by Jorge Cham.

With OA’s incredible development, parasitic or « predatory » OA journals have started to exploit the « author pays » model. The authors, generally solicited by email, are invited to submit articles, which are systematically accepted after publication fees are payed for, regardless of the scientific value14. One must note that this problem exists only for Gold OA journals.

Jeffrey Beall, of the University of Colorado, created in 2008, scholarlyoa.com, a website that contained a list of potentially predatory journals based on 52 criteria. This list was used as a standard until its discontinuation in January 2017.

An archived version is still available and other sites have tried to carry the torch. It is also possible to consult the DOAJ to evaluate the credibility of an OA journal.

The recently launched cross-sector initiative called « Think. Check. Submit » is a campaign seeking to help researchers identify journals of quality for their research. It consists of a simple check-list that researchers can use to evaluate journals or publishers. This initiative is an excellent way of fighting against « predatory » journals.

Open Access is not free. Gold OA implies administrative costs (in addition to the APCs) estimated at £81 per article in the UK. As for Green OA that number is £33 per article.

It is also estimated that the transition costs towards OA may be costly for Switzerland depending on the strategies adopted by Switzerland, Europe and the World. Additionally, transition towards an « author pays » system could engender new inequalities of access to scientific publication, especially for young researchers in developing countries.

It is therefore natural that researchers wonder about the sources of funding necessary for this transition, especially for Gold OA. Currently, the SNF and the EC cover the OA publication costs for articles and the former covers book publication costs and will do the same for chapters, starting 1 October 2018.

Researchers should always keep in mind that if they do not have the funds to pursue Gold OA, Green OA is still a viable and compliant way to publish in Open Access. UNIL makes its institutional repository available to its researchers and is committed to its improvement to better reflect their needs, especially in terms of user-friendliness and of the visibility of the deposited full texts.

The OA movement developed around periodical articles; it therefore concerns all fields, scientific as well as literary. Nevertheless, in many fields, especially in the HSS, the publication of monographs remains an – if not the most – important means of scientific dissemination. Researchers in these fields may fear that — fairly strict — mandates governing articles could harm their careers by forcing them to publish in formats unsuited to their discipline.

OA for monographs is starting to grow but is falling behind on and has different issues from the publication of scientific articles, notably concerning the quantity of work devoted to each monograph by the publishers, the necessity of selling copies to cover costs and the payment of royalties to the authors.

It is for these reasons that OA mandates are more flexible for monographs than for articles, allowing longer embargoes and even sharing the costs of BPCs and BCPCs.

The main difference between article and monograph OA is that publishers have accepted APC-based article OA and specific clauses for Green OA are by default included in publication contracts, whereas for monographs authors must negotiate their inclusion case-by-base.

UNIL’s rectorate is aware of these differences and is planning a slower transition towards OA for monographs than for articles.

Many researchers have shown concern regarding their academic freedom in the face of a compulsory policy from the rectorate. This concern is particularly strong for the HSS and the publication of monographs.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines academic freedom as "the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate."

From this point of view, Open Access mandates that allow for a mix of Open Access scenarios (namely, a mix of Green and Gold Open Access) should not limit the academic freedom of researchers. Indeed, by allowing both roads, researchers can choose the most appropriate outlet for their works, and subsequently follow the necessary road to grant Open Access to them. Gold OA allows for the publication in OA journals and books, whereas Green OA allows for the parallel publication of the article in a subscription journal and the author manuscript (or post-print) in an institutional repository.

The rectorate is aware of these distinctive features and will take them into account when writing the Open Access policy. Its intention is not to limit the academic freedom of its researchers, but rather to present to them all the possibilities available and to encourage them to make their work as open as possible, as soon as possible.

The Gold Road refers to the immediate Open Access publication.

This is possible either through purely Open Access journals, or by agreement with the publisher for books.

• The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
• The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) lists academic, peer reviewed Open Access books. OpenEdition is another Open Access Book platform mainly for books in French. Both are excellent sources to get to know the publishers who already publish books in Open Access.

Open Access works published via the Gold road are usually protected by an open licence, such as Creative Commons.

Academic publishing is not free. Gold Open Access shifts the financial flow towards the editor from the reader to the author. Therefore, Gold Open Access is an "author pays" mode and often (although not always!) implies paying article processing charges (APC) or book processing charges (BPC). APC and BPC of purely Gold Open Access is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

If you have checked the Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ and haven't found any relevant journal for the results you would like to publish, you can follow the Green Road to OA.

The Green Road refers to the parallel publication of a version of the manuscript in an open repository, or self-archiving. Open repositories can be institutional, as our own SERVAL, or disciplinary. The publication is often delayed (embargo period) and allowed only for the author accepted manuscript (AAM), also known as postprint. This is the manuscript accepted for publication (post peer-reviewed), but before all copyediting by the editor. There are no costs for researchers to follow this road.

Below you can find a scheme that shows the available roads to Open Access.

No.

Many OA journals do not charge Article Processing Charges (APC). In fact, 74% of the journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ, do not charge APCs.

Publishing is not free. Gold OA journals that don't charge APCs rely on funding from universities, academies, funding agencies, libraries, etc, to function. These are subsidised OA journals and constitute the Platinum OA model in which articles are free to publish and free to read.

The Green Road refers to the parallel publication of a version of the manuscript in an open repository, or self-archiving. Open repositories can be institutional, as our own SERVAL, or disciplinary.

The publication is often delayed (embargo period) and allowed only for the author accepted manuscript (AAM), also known as postprint. This is the manuscript accepted for publication (post peer-reviewed), but before all copyediting by the editor.

SHERPA/RoMEO is an excellent resource when trying to learn a publisher's policy on self-archiving. Héloïse is a similar service available for francophone journals.

In order to follow the Green Road at UNIL you can use our institutional repository, SERVAL.

Not as long as you make sure you are depositing and opening the correct version of your manuscript after the embargo period specified by your publisher.

The best way to know which version your publisher allows to deposit and the embargo they require, you can look for the publishing contract you signed when your publication was accepted. Alternatively, SHERPA/RoMEO is an excellent tool to check the standard terms of your publisher. Heloïse is the homologous service for french publishers and journals.

An embargo is a period during which access to academic articles is not allowed to users who have not paid for access (or have access through their institution). The purpose of this is to ensure publishers have revenue to support their activities.

Therefore, in Green Open Access, an embargo period refers to the period of time in which the allowed version of the manuscript must remain closed in the institutional repository after publication. Once the embargo period expires, the manuscript is released and available to everyone.

Pre-print (or Author Submitted Manuscript, ASM): A pre-print is the original version of the manuscript as it is submitted to a journal. It typically is a double spaced .doc file with minimal formatting. It is useful to think of this version as pre-peer review.

Post-print (or Author Accepted Manuscript, AAM): A post-print is a document that has been through the peer review process and incorporated reviewers comments. It is the final version of the paper before it is sent off to the journal for publication. It still looks like the double spaced .doc file. It is useful to think of this version as post-peer review.

Published version/PDF (or Version of Record): This is the version that has been typeset by the publisher and that is published in their website.

SERVAL (SERveur Académique Lausannois) is our institutional repository. Using SERVAL has many benefits.

SERVAL is a great tool for securely storing your scientific publications and a platform to render them open by following the Green Road. Depositing in SERVAL is compliant with virtually all Open Access mandates.

The aim of SERVAL is twofold:

• Firstly, it aims at gathering and preserving all the scientific production of UNIL.
• Secondly, it aims at maximising our researchers' visibility, by enabling them to follow the Green Open Access road.

You can check out our short tutorials to learn more about how to use SERVAL.

Articles

No. There isn't any central fund to cover Open Access publishing costs for articles at UNIL at this time.

We have, however, an agreement with SpringerOne and Biomed Central which grants UNIL researchers a 15% discount on APCs.

Publication fees in Cogitatio journals fully covered for UNIL corresponding authors

If you do not have funds to follow the Gold Read, we recommend that you follow the Green Open Access road by self-archiving a copy of the manuscript in SERVAL following your publisher's rules on versioning and embargo.

Monographs

Yes, there is UNIL's "Fonds de Publications" for collective works and monographs in Green Open Access.

The SNSF has decided to implement Open Access for all publications emanating from SNSF-funded research already as of 2020.

To facilitate this policy, the SNSF has defined a range of measures and issued new regulations, which entered into force on 1 April 2018. These measures focus on the funding of Gold Open Access publication costs (for articles, books and chapters) independently from projects budgets through the introduction of a new Open Access Platform.

Nonetheless, Green Open Access is also compliant with the SNSF's Open Access mandate as long as the embargo period is no longer than 6 monts for articles, and 12 months for books and book chapters.

The SNSF DOES NOT fund hybrid Open Access, although authors are free to use that way.

The regulations on the funding of Open Access publications can be found here (FR). A shorter fact-sheet by the SNSF will be available soon. In the meantime, UNIL provides its researchers with the summary table below:

Articles

Under Horizon 2020, the legal basis for open access is laid down in the Framework Programme and its Rules for Participation. You can find the Guidelines to the Rules on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Open Access to Research Data in Horizon 2020 here.

Monographs

For your monographs, you can claim the payment of the Gold Open Access Book Publishing Charges (BPC) to the SNSF, even if your research was not funded by them.

You can also apply to UNIL's "Fonds de Publications" for collective works and monographs in Green Open Access.

Articles

There isn't any central fund to cover Open Access publishing costs for articles at UNIL at this time.

We have, however, an agreement with SpringerOne and Biomed Central which grants UNIL researchers a 15% discount on APCs.

Publication fees in Cogitatio journals fully covered for UNIL corresponding authors.

Monographs

For your monographs, you can claim the payment of the Gold Open Access Book Publishing Charges (BPC) to the SNSF, even if your research was not funded by them.

You can also apply to UNIL's "Fonds de Publications" for collective works and monographs in Green Open Access.