Library

Open Access publishing

Current publisher agreements at the RCH Library

Transformative agreements describe negotiations between libraries and publishers to provide lower cost access to Open Access (OA) publishing.

RCH Library negotiations with publishers are ongoing. As agreements are reached they will be listed here.

  • Oxford Academic provides RCH employees with a 10% discount. Use your RCH email address in the submission process.

What is Open Access?

Open Access includes freely accessible materials such as scholarly works, journal articles, online books, datasets, audio, patents and grey literature.

OA is one part of the Open Science movement, an umbrella term used to refer to removing the barriers for sharing any kind of output, resources, methods or tools, at any stage of the research process.

What is Open Science?

OA publications, open research data, open-source software, open collaboration, open peer review, open notebooks, open educational resources or even citizen science all fall within the boundaries of Open Science.

As described by the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science:

...  open science is defined as an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.

It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly  practices, including basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences and the humanities, and it builds on the following key pillars: open scientific knowledge, open science infrastructures, science communication, open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems.

Should you publish in Open Access journals?

Many Australian funders, such as the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC), have mandates that require government funded research to be published in OA journals or be made open access via depositing the publication in an institutional repository.

See MCRI’s Clinical Research Development Office (CRDO) and Resources for researchers – the Launching Pad for more information. Find out how to meet funder requirements via MCRI Data Connect (MCRI staff only).

Campus staff can connect with the Melbourne Children’s Clinical Research Hub to begin navigating the publishing process.

See also Benefits and deficits of OA publishing below.

What are the different models of Open Access publishing?

These are the most commonly used models used by publishers and researchers:

Gold Hybrid Green Diamond/Platinum
Authors most commonly pay a fee to publish their works in an OA journal or eBook. The content is free to read and access. Authors pay a fee to publish their work in an otherwise subscription journal. The article(s) are then free to read and access. Authors publish their works in an institutional repository. This is free but may have some restrictions. The content is usually free to read and access.
 Authors can publish for free in these journals or eBook platforms. The content is free to read and access.
Publisher’s journals and platforms utilise this model. Publisher’s journals and platforms utilise this model.* If you have already published the work elsewhere, you may not be able to publish OA in an institutional repository.** These may be either institutional- or community-supported journals.
Article Processing Fees (APCs) are usually payable by the author. Article Processing Fees (APCs) are payable by the author. They are often higher than Gold APCs. No cost to author. No cost to author.

* This model does not meet the NHMRC OA Policy unless the journal is included as part of a formal transformative agreement.

** See the repositories at MCRI (Figshare) or UoM (Minerva) to find out more.

Benefits and deficits of OA publishing

Benefits

  • Scholarly research results are disseminated more widely and rapidly, permitting new ideas to be incorporated into new research sooner.
  • Removal of pay-to-view barriers allows access to new research by those who cannot afford to pay. This means your research is more visible and widely used, including in developing countries.
  • Citing of your work will increase.

Deficits

  • APCs may be payable, and these fees are not always accounted for in the research funding.
  • Some OA journals take time to develop an impact factor and ranking in their field.
  • The quality and number of full OA journals available in different disciplines varies.
  • Some predatory journals claim to be OA and attempt to scam researchers by asking them to pay APCs.

Further information

Sources

Sources for information on this page are:

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