Publishing Academic Research: Open Access

The Open Access movement is based on the philosophy that knowledge derived from public funding should be freely accessible for public use.

Open Access is the means of disseminating scholarly and scientific literature, free of charge over the internet and, to other researchers and anyone else who might benefit from accessing the results of publicly funded research.

Open Access communication of research outputs maximizes the distribution, potential usage and outcomes of research findings.

Open Access can make the difference between being cited and not cited. The easier it is to access a work, the more likely it is to be downloaded, read and cited.

Increasingly, funding agencies are placing Open Access conditions on the publications resulting from research grants, requiring you to deposit a copy of your article in your institution’s Repository, ResearchOnline@JCU. For more information about making your publications publicly available, see the following LibGuides:

Open Access criteria to look for in publishing agreements:

• Do you need to pay an Article Processing Charge, or any other costs?
• Are you able to re-use or present the content of your article in your teaching, conference presentation, thesis or other non-commercial purpose?
• Are you able to prepare derivative works of the article?
• Can you load the Published / Accepted Versions to your institutional repository, ResearchOnline@JCU?
• Are there other restrictions on sharing the Accepted or Published Versions e.g. an embargo period?
• Are you able to authorise others to use your work in a non-commercial way, as long as the work is acknowledged and cited appropriately?

The cost of Open Access publishing is met through Article Processing Charges (APCs).

APCs shift the financial costs of publishing from readers (as personal or library subscriptions) to authors.

APCs are paid by authors or their institution. Funding bodies may allow APCs to be paid from research grants. When writing a grant application, check whether you are able to include APCs in the budget of your grant application.

For more information, see the Open Access Publishing LibGuide.