Open access

What is OA publishing?

In the traditional scholarly publishing model, publishers charge the reader for access, either through a journal subscription, by pay-per-view or by the cost of purchasing or accessing a book or book chapter. There is a global movement to make research openly available without these traditional paywalls, allowing anyone to read scholarly works, regardless of their location or ability to pay.

Open Access (OA) publishing is...

  • online and digital
  • without cost to access
  • peer reviewed research
  • compliant with copyright legislation
  • free of access barriers created by financial, legal or technical issues

OA publishing is not

  • self-publishing
  • backyard publishing
  • free or no cost publishing

Watch:

Publishing Power Hour 8: Open Access publishing [00:51:29] (Curtin staff and students only)

Open Access can provide significant benefits to the community, to you and your research.

1. Open access may be a requirement of your funding agreement

A significant driver behind the Open Access philosophy is public access to publicly funded research. The Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) both require research outputs arising from ARC/NHMRC funded projects be made openly available within 12 months from the date of publication. Read more about funder mandates below.

2. Open access could increase the impact of your research
Increasing the visibility and exposure of your research creates potential for a higher number of citations. You can read more about OA citation advantage on the Open Access Australasia website. OA publishing also creates an opportunity to reach practitioners and policy makers who may not otherwise have access to the published scholarly research.

3. Open access will remove barriers to accessing your research
Maximising the dissemination of your research by removing cost barriers provides access to anyone with an internet connection. This can assist researchers in developing countries and ensure the public can access your findings.

4. Open access allows research institutions to showcase their research outputs

Institutions can make their research output visible earlier in the process instead of waiting for publishers to decide when this can be shared or made publicly available.

Green OA
Where the author publishes a paper or book with a commercial publisher and then makes a version of the paper available in an open access digital research repository, such as Curtin espace. The process should be free of charge and ensures permanent access but may involve an embargo period as prescribed by publisher policies. Learn more from our Guide to espace.

Gold/Hybrid OA
Where the author publishes in an open access or hybrid journal and the article is freely available from publisher’s website. Some journals will publish for free but many levy an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Publishing charge (BPC) that can range from the equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Diamond OA
Where the open access publisher charges neither author nor subscription fees. These journals tend to be smaller, are often based around a university press and often publish in other languages. Many are not listed on directories such as DOAJ.

Open Access/Transformative/Read and Publish agreements
Where University Libraries negotiate with publishers to allow free OA publishing in subscribed journals, essentially transforming their current subscription payments into payments which support OA publishing. This does away with “double dipping” where Libraries pay a journal subscription and authors also pay for APC’s.

Read more about Curtin’s Open Access publishing agreements below.

Read:

Transformative Agreements: A Primer

The OA Diamond journals study

There can be a range of costs associated with publishing open access.

  • Many OA journals and hybrid journals levy an Article Processing Charge (APC) on the author. These can range from hundreds to many thousands of dollars.
  • Similarly, many OA book publishers levy a Book Processing Charge (BPC) - some charges can be in the vicinity of $20,000.

There are, however, book and journal publishers who fund their activities in other ways - below we offer you a range of tools to help you find these fee-free OA publishers.

Curtin University Library also has a number of arrangements with publishers that remove APC’s for Curtin authors as part of library subscriptions.

OA mandates

Funder mandates are one of the key drivers for OA publishing. European funding bodies have raised the bar significantly through Plan S, whereby all publicly funded research must be made open access as soon as it is published, without embargo. Major private funders such as The Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have also joined Plan S.

Funding for Australian research and development comes from a variety of sources, such as the Australian Government, the higher education sector, state and territory governments, industry and the private non-profit sector.

National competitive research grants are underpinned by peer-review and are run principally through the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Both the ARC and the MHMRC endorse the principle that publicly-funded research should be shared openly and at the earliest possible opportunity.

ARC Open Access Policy

Refer to the ARC Open Access Policy to view the policy details in full.

The purpose of the ARC Open Access Policy is to ensure that research outputs arising from ARC funded research are made openly accessible and the metadata for those outputs are made available to the public.

The policy applies to all research outputs arising from ARC funded research supported under ARC Grant Guidelines and Grant Agreements undertaken from 1 January 2013.

This may include the following output types:

  • scholarly books
  • edited research books, including prestigious reference works
  • scholarly book chapters
  • refereed journal articles
  • refereed conference papers only when the paper was published in full in the proceedings
  • non-traditional research outputs

The policy does not apply to preprints or versions of manuscripts, journal articles or conference papers that have not been refereed or peer reviewed.

Written/printed non-traditional research outputs that have undergone an external review of an equivalent standard to traditional academic peer review are acceptable for the purposes of this policy.

Open data archiving of research data arising from ARC funded research is strongly encouraged, but not mandatory. More information can be found on the Research Data Management guide.

The project leader, fellow, awardee or director must ensure:

  • all research outputs arising from ARC funded research are listed, together with a permanent DOI or URL link, in the final report for each project
  • research output metadata are provided to an institutional repository as soon as possible but no later than three (3) months from the date of publication
  • the appropriate version, recording, rendering or documentation of the research output is either:
    • provided to an institutional repository to be made openly accessible within twelve (12) months of the publication date; or
    • made openly accessible via publisher website or suitable public digital archive within twelve (12) months of the publication date.
  • an explanation is provided in the final report for any research output that cannot, or will not, be made openly accessible, including how compliance options were investigated or attempted

Metadata for all research outputs arising from ARC funded research:

  • must be made available to the public in an institutional repository, such as espace as soon as possible but no later than three (3) months from the date of publication
  • must include the following information
    • ARC Project ID
    • acknowledgement of ARC funding
    • a permanent DOI or URL for the research output
  • should include other relevant information as appropriate
    • author(s)/creator(s)
    • author(s)/creator(s) ORCID identifier(s)
    • title
    • type of research output
    • publisher
    • date of publication/public presentation
    • volume
    • issue
    • page numbers
    • ISBN/ISSN/other standard number
    • licence associated with an item

This metadata requirement applies in all cases, regardless of whether the research output itself can or will be made openly accessible.

Any research output arising from ARC funded research must:

  • be made openly accessible within a twelve (12) month period from the publication date
  • be made openly accessible through one of the following:
    • an institutional repository, such as espace
    • a publisher’s website, if the published version of the article is open access with an associated licence, such as a Creative Commons licence
    • an openly accessible public digital archive, such as PubMed Central (PMC) or Zenodo or OAlster
  • include acknowledgement of ARC funding and the ARC project ID

Commercial social networking platforms such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu are not acceptable repositories for the purpose of the ARC Open Access Policy.

Written/printed research outputs

The following versions of a manuscript, journal article in a peer reviewed journal or refereed conference paper are suitable to be made openly accessible:

  • Accepted version
    • The version of the article that has undergone peer review, incorporated referee comments, final author revisions and been accepted for publication, but has not yet been copy-edited and formatted for publication.
  • Published version
    • The version of the article that has been peer reviewed, edited, formatted and typeset. It includes citation details, tagging and indexing by the publisher.
    • The published version is only acceptable if it is fully openly accessible, with an appropriate licence such as those available through the Creative Commons suite of licences.

Refer to Understanding journal article versions for further information.

Non-written/printed research outputs

The ARC requires a meaningful and enduring digital representation of the work to be deposited into an institutional repository or made available through an openly accessible public digital archive.

The Creative Works Clearance Checklist for Deposit to espace is designed to prompt Curtin Researchers to consider a range of issues such as confidentially, privacy and copyright and assist in making creative works openly available through espace.

The ARC strongly encourages the application of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY) to all research outputs arising from ARC Funded Research. However, the ARC will accept any of the licencing options available through Creative Commons.

Making a research output openly accessible must be consistent with any copyright or licencing arrangements in place. Author(s) are encouraged to consider the open access policy of publishers and research outlets prior to contracting/licensing with the publisher.

If the copyright or licensing agreement does not allow the research output to be made openly accessible within twelve months (12) of the publication date, it must be made openly accessible as soon as possible after that date.

NHMRC Open Access Policy

Refer to the NHMRC Open Access Policy to view the policy details in full.

The aims of NHMRC Open Access Policy are to mandate the open access sharing and use of publications arising from NHMRC funded research.

The policy applies to publications reporting on original research arising from NHMRC grant funding:

  • peer-reviewed journal articles from 1 July 2012
  • peer-reviewed conference papers from 15 January 2018
  • patent applications from 15 January 2018

While the policy does not apply to book, book chapters and other forms of research outputs, NHMRC encourages authors to make these openly accessible where possible. The policy does not apply to preprints. However, NHMRC encourages the posting of preprints on preprint servers with open licensing.

Open data archiving is encouraged, but not mandatory. NHMRC strongly encourages researchers to consider the reuse value of their data and take reasonable steps to share research data and associated metadata arising from NHMRC supported research. More information can be found on the Research Data Management guide.

Chief Investigators A must ensure:

  • research output metadata are provided to an institutional repository as soon as possible but no later than three (3) months from the date of publication
  • publications arising from NHMRC grants awarded under Grant Opportunity Guidelines issued on or after 20 September 2022 are to be be made openly accessible immediately upon publication and published with a Creative Commons Attribution ‘CC BY’ licence
  • publications arising from NHMRC grants awarded prior to 20 September 2022, and published prior to 1 January 2024, are to be made openly accessible within a twelve (12) month period from the publication date
  • any non-compliance with the NHMRC Open Access Policy is documented in the NHMRC’s grant management system

Authors of publications arising from NHMRC grants awarded under Grant Opportunity Guidelines issued on or after 20 September 2022:

  • must use the following statement when submitting the manuscript for publication: ‘This research was funded in whole or part by the National Health and Medical Research Council [Grant number]. For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission’.
  • should refuse any publisher-requested delay or ‘embargo period’ for the Author Accepted Manuscript, as this does not meet NHMRC Open Access Policy requirements.

Metadata for publications arising from NHMRC funded research:

  • must be made available to the public in an institutional repository, such as espace as soon as possible but no later than three (3) months from the date of publication
  • must include the following information
    • NHMRC grant ID
    • acknowledgement of NHMRC funding
    • a permanent DOI or URL for the research output
  • may include other relevant information as appropriate
    • author(s)/creator(s)
    • author(s)/creator(s) ORCID identifier(s)
    • title
    • type of research output
    • publisher
    • date of publication/public presentation
    • volume numbers
    • issue
    • page numbers
    • ISBN/ISSN/other standard number
    • other funding sources
    • access and rights information
    • experimental conditions
    • project descriptions

These metadata requirements apply in all publications, regardless of whether the research output itself can or will be made openly accessible.

Any publications arising from NHMRC grants awarded under Grant Opportunity Guidelines issued on or after 20 September 2022 must:

  • be made immediately openly access, that is, without any embargo period at the time of first online publication
  • be made openly accessible through one of the following:
    • an institutional repository, such as espace
    • a publisher’s website
    • other acceptable location such as a subject repository
  • be published with a Creative Commons Attribution ‘CC BY’ licence

Regardless of whether an author chooses to make their research open access via a publisher’s website or institutional/subject repository, either the Accepted Version or the Published Version must be free to read and licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution ‘CC BY’ licence.

Any publications arising from NHMRC grants awarded prior to 20 September 2022, and published prior to 1 January 2024 must:

  • be made openly accessible within a twelve (12) month period from the publication date
  • be made openly accessible through one of the following:
    • an institutional repository, such as espace
    • a publisher’s website
    • other acceptable location such as a subject repository

Commercial social networking platforms such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu are not acceptable repositories for the purpose of the NHMRC Open Access Policy.

The following versions of a journal article or conference paper are suitable to be made openly accessible:

  • Accepted version/Author accepted manuscript
    • The version of the article that has undergone peer review, incorporated referee comments, final author revisions and been accepted for publication, but has not yet been copy-edited and formatted for publication.
    • The accepted version is only suitable if it is fully open access, with a Creative Commons ‘CC BY’ licence.
  • Published version/Version of record
    • The version of the article that has been peer reviewed, edited, formatted and typeset. It includes citation details, tagging and indexing by the publisher.
    • The published version is only acceptable if it is fully open access, with an appropriate licence such as those available through Creative Commons.

Refer to Understanding journal article versions for further information.

The Submitted version or ‘Preprint’ is not an acceptable version under this policy.

Please note publication in ‘hybrid journals’ do not meet the intent of the NHMRC Open Access Policy, unless these journals are included as part of a formal agreement between an institution or group of institutions and a publisher (for example, a ‘read and publish’ or a transformative agreement).

Hybrid journals require the payment of an article processing charge (APC) for an individual journal article to be made open access in an otherwise subscription journal.

Creative Commons CC BY is an internationally accepted licence widely used in scholarly publishing. It removes barriers to reuse of research outputs, such as uncertainty about how information can be used or the need to seek permission, while preserving the moral rights of authors in line with established scholarly norms. It ensures proper attribution to the author(s) and allows the publication to be:

  • freely available to use and share
  • copied and redistributed in any medium or format
  • adapted, transformed, remixed and built upon.

For publications about research involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities, Indigenous attribution must be considered.

Creative Commons licensing requirements do not apply to any materials included within a publication that are provided by third-party copyright holders.

Publications with a CC BY licence can include third-party materials (such as images, photographs or maps) that are subject to a more restrictive licence. NHMRC considers this approach compliant with the Open Access Policy.

The costs of publications and open access are not to be included as Direct Research Costs (DRCs) in grant application budgets.

However, over the grant lifetime, funds can be used to support costs associated with publications and open access such as article processing charges, which are the result of the research activity and which are in accordance with the DRC Principles outlined in the NHMRC Direct Research Costs Guidelines.

The NHMRC Open Access Policy requires that patents resulting from NHMRC funding be made findable through listing in Source IP.

You can get more information about funder mandates from:

  • Funder web pages

  • Sherpa Juliet – a database that allows researchers to search for funders conditions for OA publication and data archiving. This is particularly useful if your project is being funded by a non-Australian body.

  • As the grant’s Chief Investigator/ Project Leader you are responsible for depositing the research publication in either an Open Access institutional repository (e.g. espace) or other acceptable locations (e.g. PubMed Central, publisher’s website, OA journal) within 12 months from the date of publication.

  • As the grant’s Chief Investigator/ Project Leader you are responsible for depositing the publication metadata in an Open Access institutional repository (e.g. espace) as soon as possible or within 3 months from the date of publication regardless of whether or not the publication itself is to be deposited in an institutional repository or made openly accessible some other way.

  • You are responsible for ensuring that only the Accepted or Published version of your publication is available open access.

  • As a co-author, you can deposit publications into your own institutional repository.

  • If you are the Chief Investigator/Project Leader, in cases where there may be legal or contractual reasons that limit compliance with the mandate (e.g. publications that cannot be made open access or with an embargo period extending beyond 12 months), you need to provide reasons for non-compliance to the funding body in the Final Report.

Which manuscript is required?

The ARC and NHMRC require that one of the following publication versions be made open access:

  • Accepted/Post-print - version that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication
  • Published version - also called the ‘publisher’s version’ of record which has been formatted by the publisher and published in its final form.

Using Elements and espace to comply with OA mandates

To comply with OA mandates:

  1. Log into into Elements to capture the prescribed metadata through:
    • claiming the harvested publication record, or
    • manually creating a new publication record.
  2. Ensure the Funder Acknowledgments and Grant ID are manually entered in the Labels section of the publication record.
  3. Complete the Deposit Process within Elements. This step is essential to transfer the metadata to espace.
    • for outputs published in a fully OA publication deposit the published version or enter the publication DOI/URL
    • for outputs published in subscription publication deposit the accepted version. The espace staff will make this version open access in accordance with publisher conditions and any applicable embargo periods.

For further information refer to the Elements Publication Manual, available via Elements Help.

Curtin University’s institutional repository is espace and this is the first port of call for Curtin authors to deposit their research output.

However different disciplines may lodge their works in discipline specific repositories, particularly in the case of non traditional research outputs.

While most repositories accept only peer reviewed “postprints” or accepted versions of papers, there is a growing number of “preprint servers” where papers can be lodged before peer review to allow time for feedback, discussion and revision prior to lodgement with a commercial publisher.

Tools for finding repositories

Open access journals

Publishing your work in an Open Access journal can increase the visibility and accessibility of your work. There are various business models under which OA journals operate:

  • Fully OA journals
    Articles are published in an OA journal and accessible online immediately. There are two types:
    • Fee-based OA journals require payment by the author - an article processing charge (APC).The APC can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
    • No-fee OA journals do not charge any author fees for publication. They are often published by universities, societies or research centres.
  • Hybrid journals
    The author elects to pay for an article to be made openly accessible within a subscription journal. As publishers receive both subscriptions and OA fees, this is often referred to as ‘double-dipping’.

  • Delayed OA journals
    Content is initially accessible only to journal subscribers. After a specified embargo period the articles can be accessed free of charge.

Finding the most appropriate journals in which to to publish your research will be a process of weighing up a number of factors, both within and beyond your control.

You will need to consider:

  • Do you have sufficient funds to cover publishing costs?
  • Does Curtin have an Open Access publishing agreement that will cover the cost of APC’s?
  • Would you like the article to be available open access immediately?
  • Will the journal reach the right audience?
  • What peer review process does the journal go through?

Use the tools in the next tabs to help you make the best choice.

The following resources will help you find relevant OA journals in your area:

  • DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
    Hosted by Lund University. It covers free full text, quality controlled and scholarly journals. You can match your abstract against journals in DOAJ by using the Open Journal Matcher.

  • Journal Citation Reports (JCR) - Incites
    Journal Citation Reports is published annually in two editions. JCR Science Edition contains data about more than 8,000 journals in science and technology. JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data about more than 2,600 journals in the social sciences

  • SCIMago journal ranking (SJR) Find journals by their quartile rankings and OA availability.

  • SHERPA/RoMEO
    Database of publisher copyright policies & self-archiving policies.

  • Ulrichsweb
    Ulrichsweb is an easy to search source of detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals (also called serials) of all types: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more.

  • Cabell’s Directories
    Provides access to journal information, evaluation metrics, and submission details for of academic journals in the fields of accounting, economics, management and marketing. The directories are reference tools for preparing manuscripts for publication in selected journals and they provide links to journal-specific guidelines and submission information including style, format and review processes.

For more information on searching these tools for OA content, go to Tools for finding quality journals.

The Directory of Open Access Journals search function can identify quality open access journals that do not charge article processing fees (APCs).

  • Open DOAJ journals page.
  • Click on Without article processing charges (APCs) box.
  • You can also click the box for journals With a DOAJ seal, to ensure that your results are limited to quality publishers who have met the DOAJ’s criteria for best practice in OA publishing.
  • Further limits by subject, language, peer review type can also be applied, but be aware that the more limits you place on the search, the fewer results you will get.

Open access books

There are a number of different models for publishing OA books.

  1. Large commercial publishers - these charge a Book or Chapter Processing Fee which can be as much as US$17,000 for a book or US$1,700 for a chapter. Examples include Elsevier and Springer Nature.

  2. University presses and niche publishers. An increasing number of these types of OA publishers are moving to “diamond” open access where no fees are charged to either publish or read a book. Their costs are covered by grants, subsidies, OA consortia or via the on-demand printing of hard copy editions.

  3. Between these two extremes there are other models such as Library consortia or membership arrangements where a group of Libraries pays a subscription to fund a set of OA books.

This is a rapidly changing area with new OA book publishing models being developed across the globe.

Use the tools in the next tab to find the right publisher for your needs.

Read:

OAPEN
Open Access Books Toolkit:

OAPEN-UK
Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers [PDF, 5.66MB]

  • Ask an expert!
    Check with colleagues and mentors about their OA book publishing experiences.

  • Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
    On this website, browse the list of OA publishers by name or subject area. Publishers all meet certain criteria for their peer review and licensing policies. DOAB’S Certification service OPERAs, is currently operating in Beta and will move into production in 2021.This will provide additional information around peer review, licensing and transparency, rather like the DOAJ Seal.

  • OA Books Toolkit
    A great source of current information on all aspects of open access book publishing.

  • Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)
    Search the OASPA membership database to find OA publishers who have been through a rigorous review process.

  • Open Access Australasia
    Provides an overview of developments in OA book publishing, including details on university OA publishers, commercial OA publishers and an indication of possible publisher charges.

The true benefits of open publishing are only realised if works are discoverable.

Having a unique identifier such as a DOI or ISBN for OA books and book chapters will ensure that they can be discovered and uniquely distinguished. It is also important that their metadata or description is harvested by databases and search engines so they aren’t hidden in small collections away from public access.

OA books can be discovered in a number of ways:

  • Library catalogues – Curtin University Library has a huge database of open resources discoverable through its catalogue
  • Databases such as Scopus which include OA book chapters
  • Google Scholar and Google Books
  • Publisher platforms
  • Vendor platforms – OAPEN Library, OpenEdition Books, Knowledge Unlatched, JSTOR

Read:

Curtin Library guide to identifiers

How to make your Curtin publication OA

Curtin University is committed to supporting open research, scholarship and knowledge.

Curtin’s Authorship, Peer Review and Publication of Research Outputs Policy [PDF, 177kB] and Procedures [PDF, 208kB] require that all refereed journal articles, conference papers and theses be made openly available after publication. In addition, ALL research outputs are encouraged to be made openly available, where possible.

Open access may be facilitated through:

  • espace – Curtin’s institutional repository.

  • Other repositories such as arXiv for physics, PubMed Central for biomedical and life sciences, RePEc for economics or the Social Science Research Network. For a full list of repositories you can search the OPenDOAR database.

  • Open access journals (gold or hybrid) – note that, with the exception of the agreements listed below, Curtin University does NOT provide funding for Article Processing Charges (APC’s). These costs must be factored in to funding applications or paid for by authors.

How Curtin Library can support OA publishing

Curtin University Library is an active supporter of Open and FAIR practices - learn more on our Open Research webpage.

While there is no central fund to help Curtin authors cover costs associated with OA publishing, the Library is actively working to facilitate fee-free or discounted OA publishing for Curtin authors.

We can assist Curtin authors with:

Library support for Open Infrastructure

Curtin Library commits part of its budget to support open services and infrastructure, acknowledging that this support is crucial in ensuring a sustainable and equitable open ecosystem.

Currently we support various initiatives including Sherpa ROMEO, DOAJ, and Open Citations through SCOSS (the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services) as facilitated by CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians).

For more detail on any of these arrangements contact LibraryResearchSupport@curtin.edu.au.

Open Access Publishing Agreements

Curtin University Library, working with the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), has entered into a number of Open Access publishing agreements with several major publishers. Agreements are negotiated between a publisher and an institution for access to journal content. The library continues to pay a subscription, but the subscription cost also covers open access publishing by the institution’s researchers.

The CAUL negotiated agreements are called “Read and Publish” agreements, and allow Curtin staff and students to make their articles available open access without directly incurring article processing charges. You can read more about this on the Library blog.

The Library currently has arrangements with the following publishers (note - not all titles are included, check agreement details via links below or search the journal title list):

* indicates agreement has a yearly publishing cap.

If you have an article accepted after the publishing cap has been reached you will be notified that an APC is payable to publish open access.

The Library has consolidated the total list of journal titles covered by the current Curtin Open Access Publishing agreements into the spreadsheet below. The following table provides information about the status of each title and whether it is excluded or included in the agreements. Narrow your search using the filters provided.

Journal Publisher ISSN eISSN Type Incl.
in OA
agree-
ment
Incl.
in
Dis-
count
scheme