Open Access Policy

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 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 will follow the Green or Diamond OA route, where possible.

YSJU researchers are required to deposit all research outputs (including journal articles, conference proceedings, monographs, book chapters, physical artefacts, exhibitions, and performances) into the University Institutional Repository, RaY, in the form of bibliographic metadata and post prints/author accepted manuscripts of research outputs, subject to publisher copyright permissions.

Responsibilities

All YSJU staff are required to:

Before submission

• 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.
• Select Green or Diamond OA routes to publication, where it is appropriate.
• Check with Library and Learning Services on the availability of Read and Publish or Offsetting arrangements.
• Check with their relevant School 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.

Upon acceptance

• Immediately upon acceptance, but no later than 1 month after the date of acceptance, you must deposit your peer-reviewed, corrected, and accepted versions of your research output (post-print/author accepted manuscripts) into RaY along with relevant bibliographic metadata. Accompanying OA research data should be deposited into RaYDaR in line with the University’s Research Data Management 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, a 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 policies and your publisher’s policies contradict one another, you may want to consider using the Rights Retention Strategy.
• Depending on your OA publishing route, you may need to select a Creative Commons licence. The University strongly recommends the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence is applied to research articles and encourages all staff to select this rather than any other default licence provided by the publisher. If you wish to select a different Creative Commons Attribution licence, please contact RaY before proceeding at ray@yorksj.ac.uk.

The University is responsible for ensuring systems are in place to support this OA policy including:

• Providing institutional repository systems – RaY for research outputs and RaYDaR for research data.
• Providing guidance and support on how to use and deposit research outputs into RaY, along with similar support on how to use and deposit research data into RaYDaR.
• Ensuring publisher embargo periods are recognised, and that outputs will only be available to view and download once the embargo period is over.
• Providing help and advice relating to OA, funding, copyright, licensing, right retention, research data, publishing contracts, and publisher self-archiving policies. For help and advice, please contact RaY: ray@yorksj.ac.uk.

Definitions

Open access (OA) – unrestricted, online access to peer reviewed and published scholarly research outputs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Article Processing Charge (APC) – the fee paid to a publisher to make an article freely available online. APCs are subject to VAT.

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.

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 Strategy - allows researchers to continue publishing in the journal of their choice, whilst still fulfilling the Plan S principle of publishing with immediate Open Access. See Plan S and Rights Retention for further details.