Scientific publications are today mainly in digital form and thus they could be easily accessible for everyone. Accessing the research results is hindered by the cost of journals, high prices of subscriptions and the continuous rise of prices. Methods of open science have become more frequent, and this has led to a swift increase in open science journals (for example, PLoS One) and publication and data archives.
The University of Eastern Finland, like many other universities and funders around the world, demands research results to be published with an open access (OA) within the limits of agreements and laws. Open access refers to a form of online publishing in which a scientific publication is openly accessible and utilisable for everyone, without separate compensation.
Openness brings a scientist more merit, for 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 and increases opportunities for co-operation.
Open publishing options
Publish directly in an OA series of publications. OA journals are scientific publications accessible to everyone and free of charge to all readers. The University of Eastern Finland recommends its researchers to publish results in high-quality scientific OA publishing channels that perform reliable peer reviews on the publications. These journals usually have an author/article processing charge (APC), which should be taken into account regarding the study’s funding application. In general, an APC is an acceptable project cost.
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. Other APC benefits negotiated with publishers are available regardless of the funding.
OA journals of different fields of science can be searched, for instance, in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) service and on the Publication Forum.
Publish in a subscription-based journal, but provide an open access to your article by self-archiving (i.e. parallel publishing) it in the publication archive of a university or some other organisation, or in a field of science-based archive. The University of Eastern Finland recommends its researchers to store their publications into the university’s open publication archive, UEF eRepository. Using the UEF eRepository is easy for all researchers, for after being informed about a publication by the author, the library takes care of the self-archiving and verifying the publishers’ policy on self-archiving. A permission for self-archiving is required from the publication’s authors and publishers. The publishers’ views on self-archiving can be verified from the publishing agreement and the Sherpa/Romeo service. Publication archives for different fields of science can be found, for instance, in the OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) service. The aforementioned gold OA path does not rule out using publication archives, which is always recommendable.
A researcher can always purchase subscription-based journal articles to be open. Otherwise the journal is accessible only to subscribers. The University of Eastern Finland does not consider hybrid publishing to be the main method of open publishing. In hybrid publishing, the charges for both the subscription and for opening an article (so called double dipping).
A researcher at the University of Eastern Finland can publish an article either with a discounted Article Processing Charge (APC) rate or without charges in the hybrid journals of the publishers whose licensing agreement includes that option. The APC fees of hybrid journals are paid by the researcher or research group, not by the library or university.
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 / Ryerson University Library & Archives
In self-archiving (i.e. parallel publishing, green OA), researchers store their articles that have been published in a scientific journal (final draft versions) into their university’s a publication archive or some other open, national or international database, where the publications are openly accessible. According to the University of Eastern Finland’s publishing policy, the publications will be primarily published openly via self-archiving them in the university’s publication archive. When copyrights have been acknowledged, publications can be stored into the publication archives of other organisations and field of science-based archives. The University of Eastern Finland has been among the first Finnish universities who have given researchers the possibility to use an open, university-upheld publication archive. For researchers, the free of charge electronic UEF eRepository self-archiving archive has been put into operation in February 2017.
Regarding self-archiving, it is good to achieve an agreement between the parties of a project even when the article is still unfinished. All authors must be asked permission, if the researcher wishes to self-archive a publication after the article has been published. Additionally, the publishing agreement made with the publisher must be followed, for it can state what type of self-archiving is allowed. The publishers’ policies and views on self-archiving can be verified in the Sherpa/Romeo service or the University of Helsinki’s list of Self-archiving policies of Finnish science publishers (only in Finnish). The publishers’ views on self-archiving can also be found on the Publication Forum.
80% of publishers accept self-archiving some version of an article. Most publishers have a so-called embargo time, during which the article is not allowed to be published for open online use. An embargo begins on the publishing day of the print or electronic journal. The time varies between publishers, but is normally between six and twelve months, sometimes even 48 months. Funders may also have conditions regarding how long an embargo lasts.
Self-archiving is a method used worldwide, and it is widely considered as a good way to actualise the principles of open science in a modern manner. The most important advantages of self-archiving are the increasing visibility and accessibility brought by the openness and the preservability within an electronic database. Self-archived publications in an open publication archive are online accessible for all and retrievable for search engines. The openness of the publications is shown scientifically to increase their impact and potential to be cited. Self-archiving guarantees long-time preservation in an electronic database.
Self-archiving into the UEF eRepository archive as a library service can be taken care of as you report a new publication into the SoleCRIS publication database by filling the Publishing information registration form. In addition to this, you only need to attach your article’s final draft version to the form in PDF format. If you wish to self-archive an already registered publication, send the reference information of your publication (DOI, authors, title and journal information) via e-mail and attach a final draft version in PDF format. The e-mail address of the service is erepo@uef.fi.
UEF archives
UEF researchers are recommended primarily to store their publications into the university’s own UEF-eRepository publication archive.
UEF Electronic Publications / Open UEF theses and other publications
Other archives
Articles tracking / various services and tools to track open scientific publications on FinELib's website
ArXiv / archive of preprints in the fields of mathematics, physics and related disciplines
DOAJ / directory of open access journals
Doria / publications of Finnish universities and offices/officials, National Library of Finland
Finna / list of publication arhives in UEF-Finna
Julkari / Finnish open publications archive of the administrative branch of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
OLH / open library of humanities
OpenAIRE / open access infrastructure, European Commission
OpenDOAR / directory of open access repositories
ROAD / directory of open access scholarly resources
SocArXiv / publication archive of the social sciences
SSRN / social science research networks e-library
Theseus / open theses and publications of Finnish universities of applied sciences, National Library of Finland
Zenodo / sharing and storage service for research data and publications, OpenAIRE
UEF supporting open publishing
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.
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.
There are also other APC benefits available for UEF authors, regardless of the funding. These benefits vary depending on the publisher. In most cases, the benefit is either a discount on the APC or a possibility to publish an article without the APC when it is published open access in a scientific journal.
UEF also supports open publishing via different Open Access Programs.
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 (Mendeley, RefWorks). 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 recommended by the national FinELib consortium.
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.
For more information:
AAM - Accepted Author Manuscript
(see Final draft)
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 (=AAM; Author's Accepted Manuscript / aka Post-print)
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 Final Draft is also called a post-print or Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM). 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 Final Draft -version.
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.
Publisher's PDF
The final published version of the article, with the layout of the journal.
SHERPA/RoMEO - 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
SHERPA/JULIET - information concerning funders' policies and their requirements on open access, publication and data archiving
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
EOSC - European Science Cloud portal
Unpaywall – browser extension for finding open access versions of articles
