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.
Get help with Open Access by contacting the Scholarly Communications Team
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 (though some research funders have a stricter definition for what they consider to be Open Access).
Here are the two main routes to achieving an Open Access publication:
Green is a route to Open Access where there are two versions of the output: one is the ‘Version of record’ that is published by a scholarly publisher and that readers must pay to access, the other is the ‘Author's Accepted Manuscript’ that is made publicly and freely available to any readers without charge through a repository. Oxford Brookes has an institutional repository called RADAR that achieves this purpose.
Green Open Access functions within the traditional scholarly communications financial model, where readers (typically through academic library subscriptions) pay for services performed by scholarly publishers.
Gold is a route to Open Access where there is only one version of the output: the ‘Version of record’ that is published by a scholarly publisher, and this is freely available from the scholarly publisher’s platform immediately at the point of publication, to any reader, without any charge or barrier.
In Gold Open Access there are many different and evolving models for paying for the publishing services performed by scholarly publishers, though typically they involve direct payments from authors’ institutions or research funders.
There are multiple ways that the fees for Gold Open Access can be paid for Oxford Brookes authors:
Below are some key points from REF 2021: Overview of open access policy and guidance (Word document):
Use our step-by-step guide to following the REF requirements
Here are some steps to take to publish your research as Open Access:
'Act on Acceptance' and add your publication to Converis
Use our step-by-step guide to following the REF requirements
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 Collections on behalf of all UK universities, and Oxford Brookes Library then chooses which agreements it will sign based on academic need and financial viability.
The agreement between Oxford Brookes Library and Cambridge University Press provides Open Access publishing for Oxford Brookes authors of Research articles, Review Articles, Rapid Communications (RRR), Brief Reports, and Case Reports submitted to the publisher's Hybrid and Gold (Fully Open Access) journals.
To qualify for this agreement the author must use an Oxford Brookes email address and select a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
This agreement expires on 31st December 2024.
Oxford Brookes Library has signed an agreement with Sage that provides unlimited Open Access publishing in any subscription journal (that publishes a mix of Open Access and non-Open Access articles, sometimes called ‘hybrid’ journals) for Oxford Brookes researchers. For an article to qualify for this Open Access, the corresponding author must be affiliated with Oxford Brookes or another institution that has signed the relevant agreement.
The agreement does not include unlimited Open Access publishing in Sage’s Gold Open Access journals (i.e. journals that only publish Open Access articles). Instead the agreement provides a 20% reduction in the Open Access Fee that must be paid to publish in these journals, although again there are some journals that are excluded from this discount.
There are also some publication types (e.g. book reviews) and journals (e.g. those that join Sage mid-way through this agreement) that are excluded from this agreement.
This agreement expires on 31st December 2022.
All institutions participating in the agreement share an annual ‘publish’ fund that is managed by Jisc.
When the publishing fund is in credit, all articles will be published Gold Open Access (on a first-come-first served basis) if the following requirements are met:
Each article published Gold Open Access through this agreement will decrease the shared fund until it is exhausted. If and when the publishing fund is exhausted, Jisc and Wiley will negotiate on whether the Gold Open Access allowance can be extended.
Here is Wiley’s guidance on the agreement for authors: https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open-access/affiliation-policies-payments/jisc-agreement.html
This agreement expires on 31st December 2023.
Oxford Brookes Library has signed agreements that provide Oxford Brookes researchers with unlimited Open Access publishing in journals of the publishers listed below. For an article to qualify for this Open Access, the corresponding author must be affiliated with Oxford Brookes or another institution that has signed the relevant agreement.
To ask about the Library's Open Access agreements contact the Scholarly Communications Team
