Open Access refers to the use of digital technology to make access to publicly funded research results freely and widely available to anyone with an internet connection.
Some forms of Open Access remove the barriers created by subscription paywalls where research results are only available via a subscription.
Monash researchers (current students, staff, and affiliates with a Monash University email) can utilise library Read and Publish agreements to publish papers Open Access without paying fees (article processing charges).
Most of these agreements are for 'hybrid' open access journals - see description under Gold Open Access in the table below - as it is difficult for libraries to negotiate agreements for fully open access journals.
| Green Open Access or Self Archiving | Gold Open Access |
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Researchers submit to a journal for free in exchange for closed access publishing (article requires a subscription for access), and then self-archive the Author Accepted Manuscript version in an Institutional Repository (e.g. the Monash myResearcher Pure repository). Check Open Policy Finder to see publisher embargo restrictions on when a self-archived output may be made open access in a repository. If it cannot be made immediately open (as required by most grants), then you may need to plan for self archiving with rights retention (see below).
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Open access journals might be fully Open Access which typically require a fee in exchange for providing immediate open access to the final version of the article. Journals may also be 'hybrid' Open Access (sometimes referred to as 'optional' Open Access journals). These journals provide free publishing if the output is paywalled (requires a subscription for access), but also provide an alternative option whereby if the author pays a fee they will provide immediate open access to the final version of the article. The journal fees described above may be referred to as Article Processing Charges or APCs. |
Self archiving with rights retention means that you include a rights retention statement at the time that you submit your manuscript for publication. This is typically required to meet funder requirements if not publishing open access. The suggested text to include is:
"This research was funded in whole or part by the [Funder name] [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".
This text may be added to the Funding section or the Acknowledgements section in your manuscript.
You can then upload your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version in an institutional repository such as Monash’s My Research portal (PURE).
Journals
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory of open access journals. DOAJ is a valuable resource for assessing the quality of open access journals, as inclusion requires meeting stringent criteria around transparency, editorial standards, and publishing practices.
For a list of Open Access Journals with an Australian publisher view here
Books
OAPEN is dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. OAPEN operates two platforms, the OAPEN Library (www.oapen.org), a central repository for hosting and disseminating OA books, and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB, www.doabooks.org), a discovery service for OA books.