From 1 April funding councils which are part of RCUK require articles published in peer reviewed journals or conference proceedings to be open access. The RCUK open access policy states
"Specifically a user must be able to do the following free of any publisher-imposed access charge:
Open Access therefore allows unrestricted use of manual and automated text and data mining tools, as well as unrestricted re-use of content with proper attribution – as defined by the Creative Commons CC-BY license of published research papers both manually and using automated tools (such as those for text and data mining) provided that any such re-use is subject to proper attribution"(1). >see the policy.
1. Guidance for the RCUK Policy on Access to Research Outputs (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/Guidance_for__the_RCUK_policy_on_Access_to_Research_Output.pdf)
If you are required to make your article open access you will need to find out your publisher's policies on open access.
Some publishers will allow you to upload the final version or the accepted manuscript (after peer review) of your article to an open access respository such as ORA. Please be aware that most publishers will insist on an embargo period, whilst funders will require your article to be available within a particular time frame (e.g. 6 months for most RCUK grants, 12 months for AHRC and ESRC). This is known as the "green route" to open access and is generally free.
Some publishers allow articles to be made open access on the publishers web site (i.e. the article is made freely available at the point of publication on the usual journal web site). This is known as the "gold route" to open access and in many cases will require the author to pay an "Author Processing Charge" (APC) to the publisher. RCUK has allocated Oxford a sum of money to pay APCs for RCUK funded research. To find out more about applying for an APC to be paid from the University's RCUK fund please contact us. For APCs for research funded by the the Wellcome Trust see Wellcome Open Access Publication Fees.
Please note that gold route journals may be divided into two categories:
Please note that some open access journals do not allow you to deposit a copy of your article in an repository. This can be problematic if the terms of your grant require deposit in, for example, PubMed Central.
To find out which of the different options are available from your publisher see the Sherpa Romeo web site which lists open access policies by publisher.
To find out about Oxford's policies with regard to Open Access and the payment of APCs please see Oxford Open Access.
For advice on Open Access for your subject please contact your subject librarian.
Bodleian Libraries is also running general (non subject specific) workshops on Open Access.
To deposit in ORA please follow these instructions:
RCUK strongly supports making research data open access as well as papers.
Open Access History and Background
More information: Open Access Oxford