Women in Climate (WiC) network
Women in Climate (WiC) network
Posted by Penny Maher
4 September 2018The University of Exeter’s Open Access library staff are here to help. Ask for help via openaccess@exeter.ac.uk
Q. How do I pay?
UK Research Council funders (e.g. BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC) do not allow publication costs to be charged against a grant. Instead they provide a pool of money, referred to as the “UKRI/RCUK open access block grant”, which is managed by the library. The purpose of this money is primarily to pay for open access to comply with UK Research Council funder requirements but publication charges including page and colour charges can also be paid from this fund. Apply to the library for funding to pay page charges for your UK Research Council funded papers. The library will suggest you apply for a waiver / reduction, in order to prioritise open access payments from this finite pot of money but they can pay your page charges from the block grant, if needed. First apply for a fee waiver!
If your research was funded by another funder, publication / page charges may be eligible costs to be charged to your research grant, check grant T&Cs to confirm this.
If your research was not externally funded, you may not have any funding to pay page charges.
Q. How do I apply for a fee waiver?
Check the journal requirements. They might state under what conditions you can apply for a waiver.
It is generally a good idea to apply for a waiver on submission and not on paper acceptance. This is done directly with the journal. In applying for your waiver, you will need to justify why you can’t pay. Some suggestions to include in the waiver are:
Q. What if the journal says no to the fee waiver?
If your research was funded by a UK Research Council (e.g. BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC) email the open access team to apply for the fees to be paid from the UKRI/RCUK open access block grant.
If funded by another funder, check if they can be charged to your research grant (check grant T&Cs).
If you have no funding for the page charges and the publisher will not waive them, consider publishing elsewhere.
The key point is to think about payment at point of submission and not acceptance. If they refuse the waiver and the fee is very large then consider if this journal is still the right location for your work.
Q. When should I pay for open access?
If the embargo on the paper is greater than 6 months and you are funded by a funder that specifies a maximum allowed embargo of 6 months e.g. UK Research Councils (BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC), Horizon 2020.
Even if your funder does not require it, you may wish to pay for open access e.g. publishing in a fully open access journal. If your funder cannot pay for open access, you may be eligible to have this paid from the Institutional APC Fund. Contact the open research team for more info about the Institutional APC Fund and criteria for accessing this money.
Q. Do I comply with REF requirements if I do not pay for open access?
To be eligible for the next REF, you need to deposit the author accepted manuscript (AAM) of journal articles and conference papers with an ISSN within three months of acceptance. You have complied with the REF requirements and do not need to pay open access (unless your funder requires it – see above, or you want to for other reasons). The policy allows repositories to respect publishers’ embargo periods, while it states that embargo periods should not exceed 12 months for REF Main Panels A and B, there is an access exception that permits longer embargoes if the publication requires it and was “the most appropriate publication for the output”. This is called a closed deposit and complies with the policy.
Q. Can I put my author accepted manuscript on Research Gate?
Generally NO unless the journal explicitly says so. It is journal specific.
Q. Can I put my author accepted manuscript on my personal website?
Journal specific. Check out the SHERPA/RoMEO entry or the journal website. If in doubt email open access or the journal directly.
Q. Can I put my own published figures on my website?
Depends. Often a good idea to clarify/negotiate with the journal BEFORE signing over the copyright. But you can ask the journals even after they own the copyright. It may also be as simple as citing the article.
ORE = Open Research Exeter is the University of Exeter institutional repository. More info here The University of Exeter’s open access policy requires that you deposit in ORE the research papers you produce while employed at Exeter.
Symplectic is the University’s current research information system (CRIS). It is a record of your publications which feeds your publications page and is the interface you use to get your articles onto ORE. Click here for the login screen.
Q. What do I need to do with my author accepted manuscript?
You should submit your author accepted manuscript to ORE via Symplectic. The Open Reearch team review and approve all deposits. This includes checking that the correct version of a publication has been deposited, and applying any embargo required by the publisher.
Q. What format?
If you are using word, please convert to pdf (preferably pdfa). Also combine all supplementary material so the entire record is in one file.
Q. What time frame?
Submit to Sympletic within 3 months of acceptance.
Q. Are they open access if on ORE?
Yes, once any embargo has lifted (this happens automatically at the end of the embargo period). Publications on ORE without paid open access are called “green” open access.
Q. Why should I care?
Q. What if I miss the compliance period?
Email open access and discuss it.
Q. What if I work for an additional institution other than Exeter?
Check with the other institution what is required. For UK, Australian and US institutions in particular, but potentially also those of other countries, it is highly likely that the institution’s open access policy will require deposit to their repository. However, some permit a link to the deposit in another repository. It is double handling but necessary.
Q. What is my author accepted manuscript (AAM)?
It’s the version that was accepted by the publisher and includes all modifications from the peer-review process, but without the publisher’s typesetting, copy-editing, other formatting etc.
Q. What is the pre-print?
This is the version that has been submitted but has not been through the peer review process.
Helpful links:
SHERPA/RoMEOÂ has the majority of the copyright information. See specific journals as well.
More on open research at the University of Exeter.