Guide: Open Access: The Basics

Open Access not only brings benefits to you as a researcher but also to the institution and those interested in scholarly publications.

• Making your research open access increases its visibility and accessibility to a wider audience outside of the academic community as it overcomes the barriers associated with the traditional subscription model.
• It boosts your citation count and impact as accessible research is more widely read and the rights of authors are properly acknowledged and cited.
• It raises your research profile, which can result in the creation of the new collaboration and impact generating opportunities and potential further funding prospects.
• It removes access and subscription barriers, making it more available to all and encourages the sharing of scholarship and intellectual wealth.
• It contributes to an enhanced reputation for your institution as their research becomes more visible in the academic community and beyond.
• Increasing numbers of research funders are requiring that outputs arising from research they have funded be made available on an Open Access basis - not complying might jeopardize future funding from them.

This is the free route. You publish as normal but you also deposit a copy of your research output in an institutional repository or a subject repository, making the full text freely available. Most publishers permit the deposit of the author’s peer-reviewed accepted manuscript which is the final pre-publication version, also known as a post-print. An embargo period usually applies, depending on the publisher’s self archiving policy.  

This is the pay to publish route. You publish either in a fully open access journal or choose the open access option in a traditional journal if offered. An article processing charge (APC) is then paid to the publisher by you or your institution and after going through the usual peer-review process, the article is made freely available for anyone to read as soon as it is published on the journal website.

Email openaccess@sruc.ac.uk with enquiries on making your papers OA, the SRUC Repository or for further information on OA in general.

The following YouTube clip will give you a quick guide: