Library Research Support: Open Research: Glossary of open access terms

The point at which an output has been reviewed by the journal or conference (normally via peer review), all academically necessary changes have been made in response to that review and the article is ready to be taken through the final steps toward publication (normally copy-editing and typesetting). By this point, the paper should have been updated to include all changes resulting from peer review as well as any changes of an academic nature requested by the journal editor or conference organiser.

Where traditional bibliometrics provide indicators of 'attention' focussed on traditional scholarly activity, altmetrics (alternative metrics) provide a measure of the 'attention' beyond citations in scholarly publications. As with citation data, there are different providers of altmetric data, and you may have noticed them as you accessed article you have found. They can provide a measure of how scholarly publications are shared, used and discussed online. This can give an indication of the influence and engagement of a publication in online newspapers and news services, blogs, citation in wikipedia articles and Q&A services, views and downloads from some academic databases, sharing via social media networks and use in reference management platforms.

An article processing charge (APC) is the charge that’s paid to some publishers so the article can be made freely accessible upon publication (sometimes referred to as ‘gold’ open access). This means that the cost has moved from ‘paying to read’ to ‘paying to publish’. Some funders will provide funding to cover the costs of an APC. A publisher deal may discount or cover the cost of the APC.

AHRC is a major funding body of research in the arts and humanities in the UK.

The AAM, sometimes referred to as the 'final author version', 'final author manuscript', or ‘final manuscript’ is the version of your work which:

• has been accepted for publication

• has been peer-reviewed

• but has not yet gone through typesetting and layout by the publisher

Often the AAM is a Word or Latex version of your publication. Most publishers will allow the AAM to be deposited in an institutional or subject repository, subject to an embargo period. Note that the final published PDF (the version that appears on the publisher’s website, sometimes called the 'version of record') cannot usually be deposited in DRO, unless an article processing charge (APC) has been paid for Gold open access.

BBSRC is a major funding body of biotechnology and biosciences research in the UK.

The Book Processing Charge (BPC) is a payment made by an author to publish a book open access. This may be covered by the author’s funding body or institution.

Articles are made free-to-read on the publisher's website, without an explicit open license. This could be for a limited time only, for example a promotion, or due to special circumstances like Covid-19. No APCs.

Coalition S is an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations that advocate for research publications to be made fully Open Access immediately upon publication. Coalition S signals the commitment to implement the necessary measures to fulfil the main principle of Plan S, which is:

 

With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.

The act of meeting funder requirements in the research submission and publication process as a condition of funding. This may include selecting a certain Creative Commons Licence for publication, acknowledging funding (including grant code) in both the Acknowledgments section of your paper and correspondence with the publisher and the inclusion of Data Access and Rights Retention Statements. It also might include depositing research in certain repositories. Your funder will set out their requirements of funding in their award correspondence. In instances where research is published by several authors, it is all authors’ responsibility to ensure these requirements are met.

This is a legal document containing provisions for the conveyance of full or partial copyright from the rights owner to another party such as from an author to the publisher.

A lot of the time, open access agreements are based around the corresponding author role, and this is something to pay extra attention to when going through the publication process. The corresponding author is the main contact with the publisher if more than one author is working on an article. They are the author who receives email updates about the article’s progress during the peer review and production, the peer review decision on the article, the production proofs to check, and they are responsible for the payment of the article processing charge. They are usually the author who will trigger a discount or waiver, or agreement recognition, as in most cases the publisher will recognize this author’s affiliation. Therefore, before submitting an article it is worth considering who the corresponding author will be.

These are a bank of licences designed to be applied to online works by the copyright owner. The licences allow the copyright owner to make it clear how their work can be used by others, beyond what is permitted under copyright legislation. You can find out more about these at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ or refer to the specific license definition above.

Also known as a Data Availability Statement, Data Access Statements are included in publications to describe where the data associated with the paper can be found and how it can be accessed. URKI and various other funders require papers to include a Data Access Statement, even when there is no data associated with the article, or even if there are reasons to restrict access to your data (for confidentiality reasons, for example). See our Research Data Management LibGuide for more information.

The San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA) is a global initiative that aims to reduce dependence on journal-based metrics such as journal impact measures and citations towards a culture where importance is placed on the intrinsic value of research. The DORA declaration was published in 2012 and targets research funders, publishers, research institutes and researchers. The declaration has already been signed by more than 1,200 organisations and almost 14,000 researchers around the world. On 16th October 2018, Durham University Senate approved the proposal that the University became a signatory to DORA) whilst "noting the importance of monographs in particular academic disciplines." On 8th November 2018, Professor Claire Warwick, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) signed DORA on behalf of Durham University.

A term used to describe the process of uploading a manuscript to a subject or institutional repository (usually the final accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript). This route to publication can be referred to as ‘self-archiving’ or ‘green’ open access publication. For more information about depositing manuscripts to our institutional repository, Durham Research Online (DRO), see our webpages: Depositors - Library Research Support: Open Research - Guides at Durham University

Diamond Open Access refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. Diamond Open Access journals are community-driven, academic-led, and academic-owned publishing initiatives.

A unique identifier for an online document, used by most online journal publishers. As the DOI is unique to the publication, and the underlying metadata will include the most up-to-date location of the file, referring to an online document by its DOI provides more stable linking than simply referring to it by its URL. DOIs always begin with the digits 10. For example: 10.1103/PhysRevD.86.010001

 

You can create a stable, permanent link to the official version of an output by adding the DOI number to the prefix https://doi.org/. For example, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.010001

The ability to find an article. Depositing in a repository with the appropriate metadata will result in an article becoming more discoverable. This is not the same as accessible.

Directory of Open Access Journals. A comprehensive database of over 5000 open access journals.

Doctoral Training Grants provide funding for the training of research students, leading to the award of a recognised qualification. They are paid by a Research Council to a research organisation or institute.

ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioural and human data science.

In academic publishing, an embargo is where an access restriction is applied to a piece of research, meaning that piece of research will not be made available until a predetermined time. Embargoes are commonly requested by the publishers of articles and other media, but may also be applied by the request of the author in the context of unpublished works (theses, working papers, patents, etc.). In the context of open access, an embargo is most commonly referring to:

 

Open Access embargo: Traditionally, unless an author or authors take steps to retain copyright in their publications, they will transfer copyright in their manuscript to a publisher (e.g. of a journal in which the manuscript will be published). This transfer of copyright will often apply to the submitted version and to all subsequent versions. This allows the publisher to place limitations on the distribution and re-use of the work, including by the authors. A publisher will normally grant back to the author(s) the rights to share specified versions of their manuscript, under terms defined by them. An accepted manuscript can often be deposited in a repository, such as DRO, and the metadata for that article made available immediately. The deposited file may be subject to a publisher-defined embargo. This embargo period defines the period of time that the deposited file has to remain closed within the repository, following initial publication of the paper from the publisher’s website. The embargo may permit the file to be opened upon publication (and not beforehand) or it may state that there needs to be a period of 6-24 months (or longer) before the file can be made publicly accessible. Increasingly, funders (e.g. UKRI and Wellcome) require that authors retain sufficient rights in their work to allow them to make their manuscript open access immediately without any embargo and with a Creative Commons licence allowing maximum opportunity for re-use.

For more information on embargoes visit: Embargo Guidance

Used by a number of publishers. A legal form whereby an author transfers copyright of a particular work to a publisher.

Normally associated with UKRI/Wellcome funding, External Grant Codes should be included in the Funding Acknowledgements section of your paper. For example: ‘this work was supported by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [grant number BB/A012345/1]’.

See ‘compliance’.

‘Funding’ may be used to refer to grant monies allocated to a researcher or a research project (e.g. funding from a UK Research Council). It can also be used as a term by authors to refer to money allocated to the support of authors wishing to publish via a paid-for route and may take the form of an institutional fund or a block grant allocated to institutions by funders (such as UKRI or Wellcome Trust). Both institutional funds and block grant allocations are usually subject to very specific conditions of use.

This refers to a published work which is free to access via the publisher’s website immediately upon publication. It will often have clear re-use rights (perhaps detailed through a Creative Commons licence) which go beyond what is permitted by copyright legislation. Some journals charge APCs for gold open access publication, others do not.

Publish in the journal of your choice, deposit a version of the publication (the final publisher version, or Version of Record (VoR), or the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in a repository and make it publicly available in open access, sometimes after an embargo period set by the publisher. Also referred to as ‘Self-archiving’. Generally, no APCs.

A hybrid journal contains open access and closed access articles. APC applies for articles made open access (i.e. freely available from the journal website, without restriction or charge to the reader). This type of publication means that some articles in that journal will only be available to subscribers whereas others (where the author has paid an APC) will be freely available to everyone.

Innovate UK is the UK’s national innovation agency supporting business-led innovation in all sectors, technologies and UK regions.

MRC is a major funding body of medical research in the UK.

A monograph is a specialist work of writing or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In publishing, a monograph may also be known as nonserial publication complete in one volume or a definite number of volumes.

NERC is a major funding body of environmental science research in the UK.

A movement to make academic research transparent, collaborative, publicly available and reusable.

This stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and it is a unique identifier for researchers and is used to help distinguish them from others with the same name. Research funders and publishers are increasingly using ORCIDs. You may find that you now need to enter your ORCID in order to apply for a grant or submit an article for publication. It’s free to register and get an ORCID. You only need to provide your name and email address, but it's best to add your affiliation too. If you have already got a Scopus Author ID or Web of Science ResearcherID, you can link them to your ORCID.

May also be referred to as your ‘research’, your ‘submission’, your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) OR your Version of Record (VoR)

Plan S is an initiative developed by Coalition S, a consortium of national research agencies and funders, which requires scientists and researchers who benefit from state-funded research organisations and institutions to publish their work in open repositories or in journals that are available to all by 2021. For more information, see the Plan S website: 'Plan S' and 'cOAlition S' – Accelerating the transition to full and immediate Open Access to scientific publications (coalition-s.org)

A term used for the final accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript that has been accepted for publication. 'Post' indicates that it is the version produced after peer-review and which incorporates changes suggested by reviewers and editors. Some publishers use the term post-print to mean the published version, however. Researchers are advised to clarify terms when in discussion with their publishers about which version of their output can be made available online (if any), and specifically where they can do so (e.g. their personal website, subject or institutional repository).

A publisher that exploits the gold open access model, accepting most or all submitted research outputs for publication without adequate peer review, thus maximising the income generated from APCs. The Think Check Submit guide can help authors to identify predatory publishers.

Usually used to refer to the text of the article prior to any peer review process. It is also referred to as the author's submitted manuscript prior to acceptance and/or revision.

The preliminary version of a publication provided to the author so that they can ensure no typographical, formatting or other errors are present within the manuscript. As this version has been formatted by the publisher, it cannot be deposited in DRO.

Publisher Deals can also be referred to as “transformative agreements”, “transitional agreements” or “Read and Publish agreements”. These contracts are negotiated by JISC on behalf of academic institutions and can cover up to 100% of APCs (Article Processing Charges). These deals enable eligible authors to publish research articles gold open access at no cost to the author, as well as covering subscription payments to publishers for readers to be able to access non-open access content. Individual terms and conditions apply to each publisher deal. More details are available via our Libguide: Publisher Deals - Library Research Support: Open Research - Guides at Durham University

The REF (Research Excellence Framework) is the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. Expert panels assess three different criteria: the quality of the outputs, their impact beyond academia and the environment that supports the research. What is the REF? - REF 2021 See our webpages for guidance for Durham authors: REF OA - Library Research Support: Open Research - Guides at Durham University

Online service providing researchers with the means to create bibliographic records or 'metadata' describing their research outputs and upload a version of the full-text (copyright agreements permitting). Readers use the service to search and download content of interest to them. Repositories are of three types: institutional, subject and funder. Many universities across the world (and most in the UK) have their own institutional repositories which contain content produced by their own researchers. Durham Research Online is Durham University’s institutional repository and for Durham authors. Subject repositories contain papers from a specific set of academic disciplines. For example, arXiv focuses on Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics papers whilst RePEc covers Economics. Some funding bodies such as the Natural Environment Council (NERC) operate a repository containing papers arising from research which they fund. The Wellcome Trust has its own publishing platform called Wellcome Open Research (rather than a repository) but does also require researchers whom they support financially to deposit in the repositories: PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC). Commercial platforms such as Mendeley and ResearchGate are not repositories. These are tools to share research and to “connect researchers”. There may be benefits for you in sharing your work on these platforms but you may wish to check whether you have permission to do so from the copyright owner (if this is not you) and it will not count towards any open access requirements from your funder or the University.

Research England oversees the functions of UKRI in relation to university research and knowledge transfer specifically in England.

Various Research Indicators, or metrics, are used to 'measure' the impact of a researcher, their outputs, or the outputs of an organisational unit (research group, department, Institute or University). Many institutions use them in recruitment, probation, promotion or other processes. Many researchers use them to make important decisions, such as where to publish their work. They also form part of the calculations used in university rankings. Durham University's Policy and Statement recognise that the use of quantitative measures have a place and a value in research assessment, but advocates for an accountable approach to their use alongside other measure, to provide a more rounded picture of 'research impact'.

Rights Retention is publication strategy initiated by cOAlition S funders, including Wellcome Trust and UKRI, both of which have published funder policies which include a rights retention requirement. Rights Retention strategy supports the green (self-archiving) open access route (Route 2 in both the UKRI and Wellcome Trust Open Access policies) and aims to allow an author to publish in their journal of choice (even if that published Version of Record remains behind a subscription paywall whilst ensuring an author retains the right to share their Author Accepted Manuscript immediately upon publication, in line with the expectations of their funder. Deployment of this strategy expects that authors will include a statement in all article manuscripts submitted for publication (see ‘Rights Retention Statement’ and ‘Submission Statement’), notifying the publisher of their funding obligations and that they, as author, are retaining the right to share their accepted manuscript under those terms. The intended outcomes of this strategy are that authors retain the rights to share and re-use their own Author Accepted Manuscript as they wish and are able to meet open access requirements which may appear as terms and conditions in their funding contract. Institutions may also share the accepted manuscripts provided to them by authors immediately from their institutional open access repository and can provide clear and consistent guidance for authors on how to comply and how and when Author Accepted Manuscripts will be shared. Researchers also gain immediate open access to a peer-reviewed version of research publications, which would otherwise be hidden behind a subscription paywall and through the use of standard open licencing can clearly see how they can, and cannot, re-use that published research. Publishers are also clearly notified at the first point of submission of the funder's open access requirements that the author of the manuscript is obliged to meet. Lastly, funders can ensure the authors they fund have a mechanism for making research open access immediately upon publication which is not dependent upon an author's ability to pay for publishing.

Where attempting to comply with funders’ requirements for open access publication via Route 2 (applicable to both UKRI and Wellcome Trust policies) or ‘green’ (self-archiving) route through the adoption of the Rights Retention Strategy, authors should include a statement in their submitted manuscript to notify the publisher of their funding obligations and that they, as author, are retaining the right to share their accepted manuscript. UKRI refer to this statement as the ‘Submission Statement’, where other funders may refer to this as the ‘Rights Retention Statement’. Inclusion of this statement is mandated for research articles in scope of the Wellcome Trust Open Access policy and research articles submitted after 1st April 2022 which are in scope of the UKRI Open Access policy. Authors should follow the wording provided by their respective funder when submitting their manuscript for publication. This wording should be included in the Funding Acknowledgements section of the manuscript, and in any cover letter, email or submission system note accompanying the submission.

• UKRI Submission Statement ‘For the purpose of open access, the authors has applied a creative commons attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘open government licence’ or ‘creative commons attribution no-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any author accepted manuscript version arising.’

• Wellcome Trust Rights Retention Statement

"This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission." [Note that where an article acknowledges funding from both funders, the authors can choose either form of wording - it is not required that both statements are included].

STFC supports research in astronomy, physics, space science and operates world-class research facilities for the UK.

SCOAP3 is a partnership of 3000 libraries, funding agencies, research institutions and intergovernmental organisations across the globe. By working alongside publishers, SCOAP3 converts high-quality subscription journals in the field of High-Energy Physics to open access through the redirection of subscription funds and continues to support OA publishing in these journals at no cost for authors. SCOAP3 journals are open for any scientist to publish in without any financial barriers, all copyright stays with authors, and articles are published with a permissive CC-BY license to allow text- and data-mining. All articles appear in the SCOAP3 repository for further distribution, as well as being open access on publishers’ websites.

See ‘Green Open Access’.

Where attempting to comply with funders’ requirements for open access publication via Route 2 (applicable to both UKRI and Wellcome Trust policies) or ‘green’ (self-archiving) route through the adoption of the Rights Retention Strategy, authors should include a statement in their submitted manuscript to notify the publisher of their funding obligations and that they, as author, are retaining the right to share their accepted manuscript. UKRI refer to this statement as the ‘Submission Statement’ where other funders may refer to this as the ‘Rights Retention Statement’. Inclusion of this statement is mandated for research articles in scope of the Wellcome Trust Open Access policy and research articles submitted after 1st April 2022 which are in scope of the UKRI Open Access policy. Authors should follow the wording provided by their respective funder when submitting their manuscript for publication. This wording should be included in the Funding Acknowledgements section of the manuscript, and in any cover letter, email or submission system note accompanying the submission.

• UKRI Submission Statement ‘For the purpose of open access, the authors has applied a creative commons attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘open government licence’ or ‘creative commons attribution no-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any author accepted manuscript version arising.’

• Wellcome Trust Rights Retention Statement •

"This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission." [Note that where an article acknowledges funding from both funders, the authors can choose either form of wording - it is not required that both statements are included].

Journals published under a traditional subscription model, whereby institutions and individuals pay an annual fee, or pay per view, to access content.

A transformative agreement (also referred to as a ‘transformative agreement’) covers a contract negotiated between institutions such as libraries or national and regional consortia, and publishers, that aims to reshape the business model, shifting away from traditional subscription models of pay to read to pay to publish, and transitioning toward reducing the cost to access the journal’s content over time. Open Access is a key objective for negotiating transformative agreements.

A journal that meets specific criteria, set out as part of Plan S, showing its commitment to becoming fully open access.

The UK Research and Innovation Council (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The UKRI was was launched in April 2018, bringing together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, responsible for providing research and knowledge exchange funding to HEIs in England and Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. The seven disciplinary research councils are: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Usually the final typeset and edited version of the journal article that is made available by the publisher. It is the final, published version of the paper appearing on the publisher’s website (either behind a paywall or freely available to all).

Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health.