Open Access

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At Oxford Brookes we have an Open Access policy which generally supports Open Access publication for all research outputs. We have an institutional repository, called RADAR (Research Archive and Digital Assets Repository), which is a key tool for sharing Oxford Brookes' Open Access research with researchers from other institutions and the general public.

Routes to Open Access

A research output can be regarded as being Open Access if the original research content has been made publicly and freely available online with an irrevocable licence or usage statement (such as a Creative Commons licence) that allows unlimited sharing and reproduction.

However, some research funders have a stricter definition for what they consider to be Open Access. See the links on the right for our support service for research projects funded by UKRI or one of its Research Councils, and our email address if you would like to contact us about how to comply with a research funder's Open Access policy.

Here are the two main routes to achieving an Open Access publication:

REF and Open Access

Below are some key points from the REF Open Access policy:

  • Journal articles and conference proceedings that were published in a publication with an ISSN number must be published as Open Access to be included in REF.
  • The acceptance date is what matters, not the publication date. The acceptance date is "as given in the acceptance letter or email" from the publisher.
  • Relevant outputs must be deposited in an institutional repository (for Oxford Brookes staff, this will normally be RADAR) as soon as possible after acceptance and in any case no longer than three months after the acceptance date.
  • The version of the output that must be deposited is the "author's accepted and final peer-reviewed text" (sometimes known as the 'accepted manuscript' or 'postprint'). Please note that a version of the output that is provisionally accepted before peer review is not considered as the accepted manuscript.
  • Publishing an output through the Gold route to Open Access is immediately compliant with the REF requirements, meaning a version of the output does not need to be deposited in a repository. The definition of Gold Open Access we are using is that the article has been licenced by the publisher with any one of the Creative Commons Licences or an equivalent.

Use our step-by-step guide to following the REF requirements

What should researchers do?

Here are some steps to take to publish your research as Open Access:

  1. Choose a journal, conference proceeding, or publisher that allows Open Access publishing before submitting the research output for their consideration. See above for information about the two main routes to Open Access publishing.
  2. 'Act on Acceptance': as soon as the publisher accepts your work for publication, add the details of the research output to Converis.
    • Green route: also upload to Converis the version of your manuscript that was accepted for publication by the publisher after peer-review (sometimes known as the 'Author's Accepted Manuscript') and evidence of the acceptance date (e.g. an email from publishers that states full acceptance and includes a date the email was received). To help you with this we have made step-by-step and videos guides on How to add outputs to Converis for REF
    • Gold route: please add the details of the publication (e.g. title, authors, DOI, etc) to Converis but you do not need to upload a manuscript or evidence of acceptance.
  3. The Scholarly Communications Team will then check the record on the Converis for accuracy and add or request any further information. For Green Open Access outputs we will also find out the publisher's Open Access policy (e.g. the length of embargo that should be applied) and add the Author's Accepted Manuscript of the research output to RADAR (while respecting any embargo that may apply).

'Act on Acceptance' and add your publication to Converis

Use our step-by-step guide to following the REF requirements

Open Access publishing provided by Oxford Brookes Library

Oxford Brookes Library is signing an increasing number of agreements with scholarly publishers that provide Oxford Brookes authors with the opportunity to publish their work Open Access.

The agreements may include an allowance for Gold Open Access publishing (e.g. ‘read & publish’) or involve regular annual payments to the publisher / journal to allow them to operate an Open Access model with no individual fees for readers or authors (e.g. ‘Subscribe to Open’).

These agreements with scholarly publishers are negotiated by Jisc on behalf of all UK universities, and Oxford Brookes Library then chooses which agreements it will sign based on academic need and financial viability.

To ask about the Library's Open Access agreements contact the Scholarly Communications Team