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Open Access

Open Access logoMaking an article available on Open Access means that it can be freely accessed by anyone in the world using an internet connection. Providing Open Access to your work is a way of making publicly funded research available to the public.

Benefits of Open Access

  • Increase the visibility of your work
  • Increase the research profile of the University, your School or Research Centre
  • Provide free access to research for developing countries, socio-economically disadvantaged groups and the general public.

Funding mandates

The NHMRC and ARC have both mandated that research resulting from NHMRC or ARC funding is to be made available on Open Access via the institutional repository, for SCU that is ePublications@SCU. See the Open Access Mandates page for more information.

Different Open Access models

Green

  • The author first publishes their work in a journal of their choice, and then deposits, or 'self-archives', a version of the work in either an institutional or subject repository, making it freely available.
  • The version which can be deposited is specified by the publisher.

Gold

  • The author publishes in an Open Access Journal that allows immediate Open Access to the article.
  • Usually involves an article processing fee e.g. PLoS ONE.
  • A link from the metadata in ePublications@SCU to the Open Access article satisfies the ARC and NHMRC mandates.

Hybrid

  • The author pays a publisher to make their article available on Open Access
  • Be aware that this is often unnecessary as the ARC and NHMRC mandates only require the Post Print to be made available within 12 months of publication.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

  • APCs are charged by Open Access publishers to cover the costs of publishing instead of raising revenue from subscriptions
  • The APC will vary usually depending on the impact factor of the journal

Embargoes

  • Some commercial publishers apply an embargo to the Post Print
  • This will usually be outlined in your author agreement
  • The Copyright and Scholarly Publications team that manages ePublications@SCU are happy to help you interpret your publisher agreement and manage your embargoed Post Print. Email epubs@scu.edu.au if you have an enquiry.

Which version to submit

To comply with the ARC and NHMRC mandates the Post Print must be submitted to ePublications@SCU and made available on Open Access within 12 months of publishing. Different publishers apply different copyright restrictions on the their Post Prints, ePublications staff will check copyright for you and make your Post Print available wherever possible. Just email your Post Print to epubs@scu.edu.au.

The Post Print is the final version of your manuscript before publisher markup and after any changes by reviewers. SHERPA/RoMEO provide a list of Publishers allowing the deposition of their published version/PDF in Institutional Repositories.

Both mandates state that if you are unable to supply an Open Access version of your paper then the metadata i.e. the citation details, must at least must be included in the Institutional Repository.

The Copyright and Scholarly Publications team who work on ePublications@SCU receive your publications details from your research publications submissions to the Division of Research. It would be useful to include a Post Print of your publications at this point. The Team will then check any copyright requirements and post the article on your behalf.

Open Access resources on the web

  • DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
  • DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books
  • SHERPA/RoMEO - for publisher copyright policies and self archiving rules, search by Journal Title
  • OAKList - for Australian publisher copyright policies and self archiving rules.

Updated: 17 April 2014