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In accordance with the HEFCE Open Access Policy to be eligible for submission to the post-2014 REF, the final peer-reviewed (author accepted) manuscript of all articles and conference proceedings submitted from 1 April 2016 must be deposited in an open access institutional or subject repository within three months of acceptance. The title and author of these deposits and other descriptive information must be discoverable straight away by anyone with a search engine. The manuscripts must then be accessible for anyone to read and download once any embargo period has elapsed.

To deposit a manuscript into the University of Oxford repository ORA can be accessed here.

Open Access is “unrestricted, online access to peer reviewed and published scholarly research papers where a user must be able to do the following free of any publisher-imposed access charge:

  • Read published research in an electronic format.
  • Search for and re-use (including download) the content of published research papers subject to proper attribution.

There are two basic types of Open Access:

Green OA - where a paper is stored in an online open repository other than the publisher’s system. This can be an institutional repository, and/or one designated by the funder of the research eg. Europe PubMed Central.  Note: The version of the paper released as green OA is normally the accepted manuscript: i.e. the paper as accepted for publication, including all changes resulting from peer review, but not necessarily incorporating the publisher’s formatting or layout. Some publishers only permit green OA after an embargo period. RCUK policy accepts a maximum embargo period of 6 months

Gold OA - where a paper is published immediately as OA in an online journal and is therefore stored in the publisher’s system.
Key points to note:

    • To cover the costs of gold OA, publishers normally charge a fee to the author or their institution, known as the Article Processing Charge (APC).
    • The version of the paper released as gold OA is the version of record: i.e. the publisher’s final (formatted) version

An Article Processing Fee (APC) is a fee paid to the publisher to make an article free at point of access. Whilst Open Access principles promote free availability of research and scholarly output, research papers are not cost free to produce. The cost of publication is moved from the reader (via subscriptions and pay-walls) to the author (via the APC).

Each research sponsor has
their own particular Open Access requirements. Further details of the particular requirements are:

You are able to apply to the RCUK University of Oxford Block Grant for reimbursement of the APC for RCUK funded research.

Since 1October 2014 the Charity Open Access Fund (COAF) was established to reimburse the APC for research funded by Arthritis Research UK, Breast Cancer Campaign, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and the Wellcome Trust.

Useful Links

University of Oxford Open Access website

Sherpa Juliet - funder policies

Sherpa Romeo - journal policies

Sherpa FACT - Funders & Authors Compliance Tool

Oxford University Research Archive (ORA)