Library - Research Support
Open Access
Our policy and approach to open access research outputs.
Open Access (OA) offers free and unrestricted access to research outputs. Anyone can read, download and reuse research (subject to any licence restrictions). You can choose to publish your own research so that it is OA.
Types of Open Access
There are several types of OA:
- Green OA – where a version of a research output is made available free of charge to readers, often through an online repository and usually with an embargo period.
- Gold OA – where published research outputs are made available immediately and free of charge to readers with opportunities to reuse the research according to any licence applied to the work. In return the author or their institution are usually (but not always) required to pay an article processing charge (APC) or book processing charge (BPC) to the publisher.
- Diamond OA – neither author or readers pay any charge and research outputs are published, made available immediately and can be reused according to the licence applied to the work.
- Bronze OA – where published research outputs are free to read and download but are not licenced for reuse. Publishers may withdraw access to research at any time.
Open Access at York St John University
York St John University supports the principle of OA and where possible will follow the Green or Diamond OA routes. Please note that if going down a Gold OA route, the Library and Learning Services team and the Research Office do not have funds for APCs and BPCs. Please contact your relevant academic school for funding information for Gold OA.
The University OA policy applies to all staff and research students who produce research outputs.
We ask staff to deposit all research outputs (including journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, physical artefacts, exhibitions and performances) into the University’s institutional repository, RaY, with bibliographic metadata and post prints/author accepted manuscripts of research outputs, subject to publisher copyright permissions.
REF and Open Access
UK higher education funding bodies believe that research outputs should be freely accessible and widely available. The REF 2029 Open Access (OA) policy sets out minimum requirements for open access for in-scope outputs, while encouraging researchers and institutions to go beyond these minimum requirements (where this is the case, this can be included in the People, Culture and Environment element of submissions).
For REF 2029, there continues to be an OA requirement for journal articles and conference proceedings. There is no OA requirement for REF 2029 for any other output types (for example, longform outputs, including monographs, book chapters, and more). Outputs in-scope for the OA policy are journal articles and conference contributions that have an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) and were published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2028. For full details of the technical requirements and exceptions please contact RaY (ray@yorksj.ac.uk) or visit the REF 2029 OA policy pages.
If York St John University researchers comply with the University's OA policy, your output(s) will generally be compliant with REF2029 OA requirements. However please be aware that the requirements on allowable embargo periods have changed and that outputs subject to embargo (in the form of Author Accepted Manuscripts) must be uploaded to RaY upon acceptance.
Should any York St John researchers have any questions or concerns about outputs for the next REF, please email RaY (ray@yorksj.ac.uk).
York St John University Open Access Policy
Open Access Community Framework initiatives
As part of our commitment to supporting OA, Library and Learning Services pledged money to 2 initiatives in JISC's Open Access Community Framework between 2022 and 2024. Community-driven framework initiatives enable multiple stakeholders to collectively fund OA content.
We have renewed our pledge to one of these initiatives for 2025:
International Journal of Strength and Conditioning
A peer-reviewed academic journal in the area of Sport Science, Sport Performance, and Strength and Conditioning. The IJSC is Diamond Open-Access, bringing scientific research to the entire community at zero-cost to the consumer and author. The support given through institutional Open Access pledges enable a fully independent and sustainable operation for the IJSC. This will mean continued OA to the journal for all, as well as unlimited opportunity for submission and publication within the IJSC for all of UK institutions' academics and students.