Policies and documents
Open Access Policy
This policy applies to all York St John University staff and research students who produce research outputs.
Position and Scope
York St John University (YSJU) is committed to ensuring the widest possible access to research completed by its researchers and supports the principles of Open Access (OA).
YSJU asks its researchers (including postgraduate research students) to make their research outputs OA, so that research is online and freely available, widening access and increasing the value of research, whilst also meeting the requirements of research funders who now encourage or mandate OA.
YSJU researchers are recommended to follow two open access routes, Green OA or Diamond OA, where possible.
YSJU researchers are required to deposit all research outputs on the Institutional Repositories (RaY or RaYDaR) immediately on acceptance. All deposited research outputs require bibliographic metadata and post prints/author accepted manuscripts, subject to publisher copyright permissions:
Research outputs in the form of journal articles, conference proceedings book chapters and monographs are required on RaY.
Non-traditional research outputs, such as performances, musical works, exhibitions and documented physical artefacts should be deposited onto RaYDaR.
Responsibilities
All YSJU researchers are required to:
- Check the Rights Retention policy and author workflow.
- If you have received research funding, check if your funder has any specific publishing, OA or licensing requirements.
- Check the journal/publishers OA policy and publishing routes and confirm with Library and Learning Services.
- Select Green or Diamond OA routes to publication, where it is appropriate.
- Check with Library and Learning Services on the availability and eligibility of Read and Publish agreements.
- Check with their relevant School or Institute about the availability of APC/BPC funding or ensure any research project funding will cover costs of APC/BPC payments if following the Gold OA route. Gold OA and APCs/BPCs should only be considered if Green OA, Diamond OA, or Read and Publish arrangements are not available or appropriate.
- Immediately on formal acceptance by the publisher, you must deposit your author accepted manuscript (AAM) onto RaY with relevant bibliographic metadata. AAMs are the version after peer review but before publishing copyediting. AAMs must be uploaded in an accessible format for compliance with Open Access.
- Accompanying OA research data should be deposited into RaYDaR in line with the YSJU's Open Data Policy and research funder requirements.
- Deposit of research outputs is the responsibility of the author or in the case of multiple authors, the lead author. If the lead author is not from YSJU and the output is placed in a repository hosted elsewhere, an accessible copy of the output must still be placed into RaY.
- If YSJU researchers receive research funding, they must ensure that they comply with all funding requirements including any OA requirements or publishing requirements.
- If your funder’s OA policies and your publisher’s OA policies contradict one another, you should use YSJU's Rights Retention Policy. Contact ray@yorksj.ac.uk for more advice.
- Depending on your OA publishing route, you will need to select an open licence. YSJU's Rights Retention Policy requires a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) applied to Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs), with a Rights Retention statement noting this on submission to the publisher. For other publishing routes (such as Diamond OA, Gold OA through funding or Gold OA through specific Read and Publish Deals), YSJU strongly recommends selecting the CC BY licence or CC BY ND, rather than any other default licence suggested by the publisher. If you wish to select a different Creative Commons Attribution licence, please contact RaY before proceeding at ray@yorksj.ac.uk.
Definitions
Open access (OA) - unrestricted, online access to peer reviewed and published scholarly research outputs.
Green OA - where a version of a research output is made available free of charge to readers, often through an online repository and sometimes with an embargo period (if Rights Retention has not been asserted). YSJU recommends this route with Rights Retention to ensure immediate Open Access.
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. YSJU recommends this route where possible.
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) to the publisher.
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.
Article Processing Charge (APC) - the fee paid to a publisher to make an article freely available online. APCs are subject to VAT. Neither the Library nor Research Office had funds for APCs.
Book Processing Charge (BPC) - the fee paid to a publisher to make a book or book chapter freely available online. BPCs are subject to VAT. Neither the Library nor Research Office had funds for BPCs.
Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) - the version that has been through peer review and has been accepted by the publisher but has not had publisher copyediting or typesetting. It can also be referred to as a 'Post-Print' or 'Final Author Version.'
Version of Record (VoR) - The final, published version of a research output. It includes publisher copyediting and typesetting. Copyright of this version depends on OA route selected.
Research outputs - published or publicly presented results of research work completed while working at YSJU. These include journal articles, published conference proceedings, monographs, book chapters, physical artefacts, exhibitions, and performances.
Transitional OA agreements - also known as Read and Publish agreements, are agreements with publishers that allow institutions to access and read publisher content whilst also allowing researchers to publish research OA.
Hybrid Journals - A type of Transitional Agreement offering two Open Access routes (Green OA and Gold OA).
Gold Journals - A Fully Open Access journal. An APC is required to publish outputs Open Access (OA route only).
Creative Commons licence - Creative Commons is a way of licensing materials that encourages reuse and sharing, whilst also allowing creators to retain some rights. See copyright essentials for further details.
Rights Retention Policy - allows researchers to publish in hybrid journals using the Green OA route. A version of the output is made Open Access immediately through the institutional repository, RAY with copyright retained by the author. See the Rights Retention webpage and Plan S for more information.
