Open access publishing (OA) refers to the free dissemination of scientific information. An open scientific publication is available and usable by everyone without separate compensation. Like many other universities and funders around the world, the University of Eastern Finland demands research results to be published as open access (OA) within the limits of agreements and laws.
Openness brings a scientist more merit, as openly accessible scientific publications are cited more often than articles published only in subscription-based journals. The open publishing of a research study promotes the work’s visibility, utility, and impact, in addition to increasing opportunities for co-operation.
Two routes to open access publishing
Prior licence model
University of Eastern Finland will introduce a prior licence model for research publications on January 1, 2026. This page provides instructions for researchers publishing their work on how to use the prior licence model at the University of Eastern Finland.
What does prior licence mean?
In practice, prior licence means that peer-reviewed article manuscripts are immediately made openly available in the university’s institutional repository under a Creative Commons license.
For articles published under an open CC license on the publisher’s platform, the final published version (Version of Record, VoR) will be deposited. If the publisher does not publish your article openly, under the prior licence model the last peer-reviewed manuscript version (Author Accepted Manuscript, AAM) prior to publication will be deposited in the university’s institutional repository under a CC license required by the funder.
Which publications prior licence applies to?
The prior licence model applies to all manuscripts submitted for review on or after January 1, 2026. It does not apply retroactively to manuscripts submitted before January 1, 2026. The model will be implemented in all Finnish universities.
At the University of Eastern Finland, prior licence applies to all authors who are employed by the University of Eastern Finland or have the right to pursue postgraduate studies when they submit their manuscript for publication (Rector’s decision 75/2025; UEF ref. no. 1461/00.05/2025).
Under the prior licensing model, the peer-reviewed manuscript version of the article is stored in the university's publication archive, UEF eRepo. This ensures the long-term availability and preservation of research publications.
What is required from the author?
Prior licence is part of the self-archiving process. The peer-reviewed manuscript and accepted version that you submit will be deposited in the university’s institutional repository and made immediately open under a CC license, unless you indicate otherwise.
If you are submitting your manuscript for review after January 1, 2026, please proceed as follows:
- First, check your university’s open access agreements.
- Inform your co-authors well in advance that the peer-reviewed manuscript will be deposited immediately and openly in our university’s institutional repository under a CC license.
You can communicate this as follows:
Our university applies a prior licence model [link], under which peer-reviewed manuscript versions are deposited in the university’s institutional repository under a CC license without any embargo. If these conditions for self-archiving are not acceptable to you, please inform me by [date]. If I do not receive a response, I will proceed according to our university’s prior licence model.
If any co-author does not agree to this, you may opt out of the prior licence model. See the section Exceptions.
Finally:
- Sign the publishing agreement, even if it requires compliance with the publisher’s conditions, such as an embargo period for the self-archived version. Our university applies the prior licence model described on this page, and based on this model, the article will be made immediately open in the university’s publication repository regardless of any restrictions imposed by the publisher.
The author does not need to inform the publisher about the prior licence model personally. The university has described the prior licence model on its website and has communicated the matter to publishers.
Exceptions
The author may opt out their article of the prior licence model by notifying [email protected] and providing their reasons for doing so. However, they are still required to comply with the university’s open science and research policy. In such cases, the publication will still be deposited in the institutional repository, but in accordance with the publisher’s terms, such as any embargo period.
Please note that many research funders require immediate open access, whereas a scholarly publisher may not publish in a way that meets this requirement. If you choose to request an exception, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are following your funder’s requirements.
Self-archiving
Self-archiving is a globally used, cost-effective and easy way to actualise the principles of open science. The benefits of self-archiving include increased visibility due to open access and guaranteed long-term preservation in the electronic publication archive. In self-archiving, articles originally published in scientific journals are recorded into organisational or disciplinary, national or international open access repositories, from which the publications can be accessed by anyone. In accordance with the publication policy of the University of Eastern Finland, publications are made open access primarily through self-archiving into the university’s own publication archive, UEF eRepository.
Regarding self-archiving, it is recommended to achieve an agreement between the parties of a project early in the writing stage of the article. It is also necessary to comply with the publishing agreement, which may define the type of self-archiving that is allowed. The publishers’ practices and policies regarding self-archiving can be viewed on the websites of the publisher and the journal, as well as on the Open Policy Finder service.
Most publishers accept the self-archiving of at least some version of the article, either a accepted manuscript (AM) or published version. Many publishers use an embargo period, during which the article may not be published for free online use. However, it is recommended to submit the article for self-archiving immediately after its publishing. Most self-archiving archives (including UEF eRepository) provide the opportunity to at first only display the reference information of the article, allowing for the article itself to become accessible after the embargo period has expired. The embargo periods vary between publishers, but normally they last for about 6–12, sometimes up to 48 months. Financiers may also provide conditions related to the length of the embargo period.
Self-archiving into UEF eRepository is a service that the library provides when you submit the information of your publication into the UEF CRIS research database. In addition to recording the publication information, you need only attach the accepted manuscript version of your publication (peer-reviewed, but without the publisher’s final formatting, pagination, logos etc.) In the case of an open access article published under a CC licence, no attachment is required. If you want to self-archive a publication that is already found in UEF CRIS, send an email containing the publication’s reference information (doi, authors, article name, and journal information) to [email protected], and attach the AM version of the article. Only peer-reviewed publications are saved at UEF. Preprint versions can be saved, for example, into Arxiv or similar disciplinary-specific preprint archives, such as bioRxiv or psyArXiv.
Open access publishing in an APC journal
Scientific journals usually charge an Article/Author Processing Charge (APC) or a Book Processing Charge (BPC) from the author of an article/book to cover the costs of open publishing.
The corresponding UEF and KUH authors can publish their articles in Open Access free of charge or with discounted APCs in journals which are included in UEF’s Open Access agreements. You can use the Journal Search Tool to check if the journal is included in our agreements.
If the journal is not included in our agreements or our agreement does not cover the entire APC, the APC should be paid from the research project's funding. UEF has outlined that the costs of publishing must always be included in the project’s funding applications. If the APC fees have not been approved as costs in the funding of the project, it is under certain prerequisites possible to pay the APC from UEF’s funds.
UEF also supports open publishing by contributing to the financing of various open science infrastructures.
Jisc Open policy finder (formerly SHERPA/RoMEO & SHERPA/JULIET), resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis & information concerning funders' policies and their requirements on open access, publication and data archiving
Jisc Open access compliance (formerly SHERPA/FACT) Funders & Authors Compliance Tool
PubPeer – platform for open peer reviewing
OpenDOAR – directory of Open Access repositories
ROARMAP - (Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies) - service can be used to check the OA policies of state governments, universities and research funders, among others
ORE - Open Research Europe, an open access publishing venue for European Commission-funded researchers across all disciplines, with no author fees
Unpaywall – browser extension for finding open access versions of articles
AAM - Accepted Manuscript (aka Final Draft, Post-print, Accepted Author Manuscript, Accepted version)
The last version sent from the author to the publisher which has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publishing, but which does not have the final layout of the journal. For example there might not be any page numbers or at least the page numbers will not match the final published version.
The Accepted Manuscript is also called a post-print or Final Draft or Post-print. The term "post" in Post-print refers to peer-review, not the actual printing. In the same logic, a pre-print is the version before peer-review.
The version with a watermark "Proof" is no longer a Accepted manuscript -version.
Article/Author Processing Charges (APCs) of OA articles
An article/author processing charge (APC) is a fee which is charged to authors by many scientific publishers to make the article available open access in either an open access journal or hybrid journal. Different academic publishers have widely varying levels of APCs, from a few dozens to over several thousand euros. APCs can be searched e.g. via Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) service but remember to verify the current fee on the journal website. This fee is usually paid by the researcher, and these fees must be considered already at the research funding application.
Embargo
A time period defined by the publisher, during which the article cannot be made available online. The time period varies normally from six months to 12 months. Some publishers don't have embargo periods at all.
Final draft
(see Accepted Manuscript)
Gold OA
Article published in an open access journal which has authoring fees, which are paid by the author or a research group.
Green OA
Article (or, like in most cases, a final draft version of the article) deposited in an organisational repository (UEF eRepository) or a subject matter repository. No costs for the researcher/author.
Hybrid Open Access
A publishing model in which only a portion of the articles are published in open access. Open access publishing requires a payment of an APC (Article Processing Charge).
OA-mandate
An organisational obligation, which states that the publications associated with the organisation must be published as open access. The organisational mandates can be checked at the ROARMAP service.
Open Access
A freely accessible publication, no costs are associated with reading the publication.
Parallel publishing / Self Archiving
A process in which a previously published article is deposited in a web-based repository, from which it is freely available A repository can be an organisational repository or a subject matter specific repository.
Pre-print
Manuscript. The version of the article before peer-review.
Published version
The final published version of the article, with the layout of the journal.
Version of record (VoR)
(see Published version)
Frequently asked questions and answers on the University of Eastern Finland Prior Licence Model supporting Rights Retention Strategy (RRS).
My article will be published open access under a Creative Commons license, what do I have to do?
If your article is published open access under a Creative Commons license in publisher's service, you do not need to do anything. The university library will take care of self-archiving the published article's full-text version in university's institutional repository, and there is no need to self-archive the peer-reviewed manuscript version.
What publication types does the prior licence model apply to?
Prior licence applies to peer-reviewed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and anthologies (publication types A1–A4 in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s publication data collection).
- A1 Journal article (refereed), original research
- A2 Review article, Literature review, Systematic review
- A3 Book section, chapters in research books
- A4 Conference proceedings
Does the prior licence model restrict my ability to choose where I publish my article?
No. The prior licence model provides researchers with more options for choosing a publication channel, as it allows them to meet funders' open access requirements even in cases where paying the open access fee (APC fee) in so-called hybrid journals is not feasible, or publisher's policy doesn't allow self-archiving without an embargo an under Creative Commons license.
Does this prior licence model apply also to students?
The prior licence model applies to peer-reviewed research articles in journals, conference proceedings and anthologies published by individuals employed by the university or enrolled in postgraduate studies. However, the prior licence model does not apply to publications where a bachelor or a master student is the sole author, because publications by undergraduate students are not taken into account in the Ministry of Education and Culture's publication data collection.
I deposit my peer-reviewed manuscripts to discipline-specific repositories (e.g., arXiv), do I need to self-archive the peer-reviewed manuscript also to an institutional repository?
Use of discipline-specific repositories commonly used and endorsed by the respective research communities is recommended, because it increases the visibility and impact of the research. However, the full-text versions of peer-reviewed manuscripts or published articles should be deposited also to university's institutional repository to ensure long-term availability in national repositories. This strengthens national knowledge security.
What happens if I move to another institution before my article is accepted for publication?
The prior licence model applies also in cases where author leaves the university before the article is accepted for publication.
Licenses and versions of the article
Different versions of the scientific article
There are three different versions of a journal article or other research output: preprint, peer-reviewed manuscript, and published article.
1) Preprint is the manuscript version that has been submitted for review, but not yet undergone peer review.
Please note: Preprint doesn't comply with funders' open access policies, because funders require that peer-reviewed scientific articles are available open access.
2) Peer-reviewed manuscript (e.g. AAM, Author accepted manuscript, final draft) is the version that has been accepted for publication by the publisher. It does not have publisher's layout or logo on it.
Please note: If the published article is not published open access under open license, peer-reviewed manuscript will be used for self-archiving.
3) Published article (e.g. VoR, Version of Record, final published version) is the final version that has been peer-reviewed and published in a journal or proceedings, and has undergone editing and typesetting, and will have the publisher's logo on it.
Please note: If the published article is not available open access under an open license, it cannot be used for self-archiving.
What are Creative Commons licenses?
Creative Commons licenses are the most common open licenses that enable the creator to specify how someone else may use their work. The creator always retains the copyright to their work. For example, the CC BY license allows the work to be freely copied, distributed, and modified, even for commercial purposes. The original work must always be attributed, and the creator's name must be mentioned. Several research funders require the use of the CC BY license.
Publishing agreements and prior licence model
How publishers have reacted to the prior licence model?
Currently, similar policies to prior licence model (internationally known as Rights Retention Strategies) are applied in more than 150 universitiesOpens in a new tab, and there are no known cases where researchers affiliated with these institutions have faced legal actions by the publishers.
It is highly unlikely that publishers would pursue legal actions before giving the possibility to remove the peer-reviewed manuscript from the institutional repository. In the event of a dispute concerning interpretation and application of the prior licence model, university is responsible for solving it. If the publisher would contact you, please contact: [email protected].
Some publishers (e.g. ACS and IEEE) have introduced so-called repository fees. These publishers may charge separate fees for self-archiving of a peer-reviewed manuscript without an embargo, or for the use of a CC license in self-archiving. These fees are not included in the journal contracts that the library has with publishers.
Can I sign a publishing agreement that allows self-archiving of the peer-reviewed manuscript only after an embargo period?
Yes, you can sign the publishing agreement. The embargo period does not apply as your university's prior licence model precedes the publishing agreement.
Do I need to inform the publisher about the prior licence model when I submit my manuscript?
No, university will inform publishers about the prior licence model in early 2026 and considers this as sufficient prior notice.
What happens if any of the co-authors disagree with the prior licence model?
Application of this prior licence model should be agreed upon with the co-authors, similar to the authors' roles and their order in the article, choice and openness of the publication channel etc. If for any reason, one of the co-authors does not approve self-archiving the peer-reviewed manuscript without an embargo under a CC license, it is possible to opt out of the university's prior licence model.
When choosing a suitable, reliable and high-quality publishing channel, you can utilise, for example, the following services:
Publication Forum (JUFO) can be searched for scientific journals, series and book publishers that have a JUFO rating. The Publication Forum’s JUFO rating is a quality of publication channels classification by a Finnish science community. You can narrow down your search to only OA journals. You can find more information about Publication forum from UEF Library's blog.
Journal Checker Tool : Plan S Compliance Validator allows you to check is the journal’s publishing policy compatible with Plan S goals.
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database allows you to check the impact factor values and other citing and reference indicators of journals in the Web of Science database. Using JCR is subject to a charge, and you can also access it outside the campus network via UEF Primo using your UEF username and password.
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) contains a comprehensive list of OA journals of various disciplines.
BASE (Bielefeld University Library) is one of the most voluminous search engines for academic web resources
SCImago Journal & Country Rank portal contains indicators for evaluating journals and countries that are based on the Scopus database (e.g. h-index, number of citations, SJR).You can narrow down your search to only OA journals.
Elsevier Journal Finder is a tool by the Elsevier publishing company. It allows you to search for a suitable journal from over 2,000 options. You can narrow down your search to a certain field of science or to OA journals. You also receive bibliometric information of the journals (processing time, impact factor etc.).
Springer Journal Suggester searches all Springer and BioMed Central journals.
Edanz Journal Selector is a tool for choosing suitable journals beyond publisher borders. A journal can be searched, for instance, by field of study or an abstract. You can narrow down your search to OA journals.
Research Square's Journal Guide helps to find the best journal for your research. A growing journal database across all academic fields.
IEEE Publication Recommender helps to find the best match for your scholarly article of technology.
JANE – Journal Article Name Estimator helps you to choose a suitable journal, focusing on disciplines of biomedicine. The search is limited to publications indexed by the Medline database. OA journals are highlighted in the results.
Academic journal guide (CABS, Chartered Association of Business Schools, UK) - guide to the range and quality of journals in which business and management academics publish their research, based upon peer review, editorial and expert judgements.
When choosing a publishing channel, beware of dishonest, so-called predatory OA publishers. Such journal titles have been gathered on the Beall’s List, which, however, is not updated at the moment. The list contains potential or plausible scientifically questionable OA journals that often neglect peer-reviewing and mainly aim for cashing in from scientists.
Also Cabells Predatory Reports can be used for checking potential predatory journals.
For more information:
Beware of predators! blog post in UEF Library's blog
Check list for making sure you choose trusted journals for your research / Think. Check. Submit.
List of journals falsely claiming to be indexed by DOAJ / DOAJ
EndNote Manuscript Matcher suggests the top candidates for your manuscript / EndNote
Evaluating Open Access Journals / Bond University Library
Persistent identifiers, PIDs, are identifiers used to identify something, such as a publication, research data or person, in an online environment. Persistent identifiers are used to ensure hyperlink functionality, even if the physical location of the site in the network were to change. Persistent identifiers are an important piece of metadata. Identifiers generally used in publications include the following: Handle, which is used in open publication archives (e.g. UEF Erepository); DOI, which is used more commonly in commercial publishers’ systems; and URN, which is usually used in data archives, digital collections and publication archives (e.g. UEF Electronic Publications).
ORCID
By creating a personal identifier, a researcher enhances the findability of their publications and makes it easier to monitor references to their work. An identifier is useful in many occasions: for instance, with manuscripts, when peer-reviewing, on a website, in the social media and in your CV. This ensures your visibility in databases and your networking within scientific communities. Some scientific publications also (e.g. PLOS ONE, eLife, Science) require the use of an ORCID identifier.
ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) has been recommended to be the national researcher identifier of Finland. The/an international ORCID identifier provides a researcher with a stable and personal digital identifier. The identifier reduces confusions with name changes, researchers with a similar name or different ways of spelling names. In the easy-to-use ORCID service, a researcher can keep their list of publications up to date and automatically connect publishing information via ResearcherID, Scopus Author ID, Europe PubMed Central and CrossRef Metadata Search to their profile. In addition to the publications’ metadata, the information can be imported to the ORCID as BibTeX files from Google Scholar, different databases and reference management softwares (Zotero, Mendeley). Due to the identifier, research output becomes automatically interconnected, and in time the requirement to feed personal details and publishing information several times to different systems will decrease.
Register yourself into the ORCID service and create your personal profile. In addition to publications, you can update your training, career and funding information into the identifier, which makes the ORCID to function as a CV.
For more information:
researchidentifier.fi / information about the ORCID researcher identifier
orcid.org / information about the ORCID researcher identifier and signing in to the service
When a publication is made open, it is usually also licensed. The licence determines how the publication may be further utilised. The most common licence is the Creative Commons (or CC) licence. CC licensing allows for the researcher to select a few additional provisions that can be used to restrict the open use of the publication. If the publication has several authors, CC licensing requires consent from them all.
CC BY (Attribution) requires that the name of the author, the licence and the original place of publication are cited. It allows others to distribute and adapt the publication and make new versions of it (e.g. translations). The commercial use of both the original publication and the adapted version of it is permitted. The adaptation does not need to be CC licensed, meaning that using it for commercial purposes is easier than using the original publication (which is publicly available anyway). The author themselves may also share their article on commercial social media platforms, for example. An efficient licence in terms of increasing the exposure and impact of a piece of research. The licence required or recommend by many funders (including Academy of Finland) as well as both national and international open science guidelines.
CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) is similar to the CC BY, but any adaptations of the publication must be distributed under the same licence as the original. Utilising the new version commercially is more difficult, because it too must be freely shareable.
CC BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivatives) is similar to the CC BY, but the original publication may not be adapted. Translations also require a separate permit.
CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial) is similar to the CC BY, but the commercial use of both the original publication and its adaptation is prohibited. The adaptation does not need to be licensed under the same terms, with the exception of commercial use. Readers may find it difficult to determine which use falls under commercial use, which reduces the shares a publication may get. Sharing these publications on commercial social media platforms, for example, is prohibited. Please note that using this licence may assign all of the commercial use rights to the publisher.
CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike) is similar to the CC BY, but an adaptation must be licensed under the same terms as the original, and neither may be used commercially.
CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives) is the most restrictive CC licence. The publication may not be adapted or used for commercial purposes. Readers may find it difficult to determine which use falls under commercial use, which reduces the shares a publication may get. Sharing these publications on commercial social media platforms, for example, is prohibited. Please note that using this licence may assign all of the commercial use and adaptation rights to the publisher.
