Södertörn University Library: SöderScholar
Databases
Publish your research Open Access
Free access to research results has become more important and is being requested by many research funders. Making your research publications freely available through Open Access publishing helps spread your research to the world while complying with policies from funding organisations and universities.
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What does Open Access mean?
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Södertörn University's publishing is Open Access
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There are different ways of publishing Open Access
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Publishers included in the agreements for Södertörn University's researchers
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Search for journals included in publisher agreements
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Watch out for predatory publishers
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FAIR principles
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Read more about Open Access
What does Open Access mean?
When you choose to make your research Open Access (OA), your work becomes freely available on the internet, which means that it is free to link to, download, print and read for anyone. This increases the visibility of your research to authorities, companies and the public, as well as potentially increasing the uptake and use of it.
The funding bodies Östersjöstiftelsen
(The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies), Vetenskapsrådet (The Swedish Research Council), Forte (the Swedish Reserach Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare) and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences) require that all research that receive financial support from them should be published OA.
Södertörn University’s policy regarding electronic publishing makes provision for the support and encouragement of OA publishing in general. In addition to that, the policy states that all the university's publications (including dissertations) must be published and made freely available online. Read the policy on E-publishing at Södertörn University on Medabetarwebben (Swedish language only).
Södertörn University's publishing is Open Access
If you want to get an overview of the university's publications, all series and publications are collected in The Library / Publication series. You can also search for the university's publications in the DiVA database or read more about the publication series in the brochure What are you reading? (pdf).
Södertörn University has chosen to join the Swedish collaborative project Kriterium. The project offers a quality certification for academic books that have undergone the peer review process. All books with the Kriterium label will be freely available through Open Access. You can read more about it here Kriterium.
Södertörn University encourages all contributors, authors and editors to consider publishing their work using a Creative Commons license so that the works are freely and legally used as part the university's drive towards Open Access publishing.
There are different ways of publishing Open Access
There are three ways of publishing Open Access:
- You can publish your text directly in an Open Access journal or in an Open Access monograph.
- You can deposit/parallel publish a copy of your fulltext publication in an open repository such as DiVA.
- You can publish your article Open Access in a hybrid journal.
As a researcher, you can publish your text directly in an OA journal, or as an OA monograph. A collection of OA-journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and examples of monographs can be found in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). An Article Process Charge (APC) must be paid but you can apply for an extra grant from the Publications Committee at the university or from your research funding body.
If you choose to publish in a subscription journal you can still make your text freely available through a repository, without extra charge. This is called Parallel publishing or self-archiving. The publication database DiVA is used for parallel publishing at Södertörn University and at the Swedish Red Cross University College. Note that it is also possible to parallel publish anthology contributions and monographs.
Here are some things you will need to consider before you upload your text in DiVA:
- Your work must already be published.
- Check which version of your work you are permitted to make freely available (often the final, peer-reviewed manuscript). Sometimes there is an embargo period of 6 or 12(48) months before you are allowed to parallel publish a text. You can find many publishers copyright transfer agreements for journals in SHERPA/RoMEO.
- Copyright, for instance, on maps, tables and pictures.
Publishers included in the agreements for Södertörn University's researchers
Södertörn University has entered into several agreements where the publication fee is either included or reduced. To know what applies to the various agreements, there is a brief description below.
Keep in mind that:
- The agreement only applies when you are Corresponding Author.
- You must use your SH email address when submitting your article.
- The prepaid pot may run out before the year ends for some of the agreements.
Cambridge University Press
As a researcher at Södertörn University, you can publish Open Access without a publishing fee in approximately 290 hybrid journals and 30 pure Open Access journals from Cambridge University Press. The agreement means unlimited publishing of openly available articles. The agreement includes both costs for the library's subscriptions and costs for Open Access publishing. The agreement applies from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021.
Elsevier
The agreement contains unlimited open free publication in the Science Direct Freedom Collection and all open journals. The Science Direct Freedom Collection is a dynamic package of approximately 2,000 titles, which also includes journals from learned societies.
In order for articles to participate in the agreement, they must be submitted after 1 January 2020. The agreement applies from 1 January 2020 until 31 December 2022.
Oxford University Press
In the agreement between Swedish universities and Oxford University Press, you as a researcher at Södertörn University have the opportunity to publish open access without publishing fees in just over 300 hybrid magazines from Oxford University Press. The agreement applies from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021.
Note that the agreement is only expected to cover about 75% of the total expected publication for all participants in the national agreement in 2020. In other words, there is no guarantee that a submitted article will be covered by the agreement. By 2021, the agreement is expected to cover 85% of the total expected publication.
SAGE
In the agreement with SAGE you as a researcher at Södertörn University can publish with open access in hybrid journals in the package SAGE Premier. The package contains over 1,100 journals. Articles accepted for publication after January 1, 2020 are covered by the agreement.
The agreement also provides access to a 20% discount on publication in SAGE's fully open journals. The agreement applies from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2022.
Springer Compact
The Springer Compact model is a way for researchers, who are Corresponding Authors from participating organisations, to have their articles published with open access in Springer Natures hybrid journals, so-called Open Choice and retain their copyright with a CC-BY license. Open Choice consists of approximately 1,600 titles. Articles covered include: Original Papers, Review Papers, Brief Communications and Continuous Education. If you as a researcher at Södertörn University publish an article in one of Springer Nature Open Choice journals, Springer Nature will contact the library to verifiy that you are employed at the university. You can read more about the Springer Compact model on Springers own web pages.
Springer Nature Fully OA
As a researcher at Södertörn University, from 15 July 2019, you can publish free of charge in just over 570 pure open access journals from Springer Nature.
Springer Nature Fully OA is a pilot agreement within the Bibsamkonsortiet, which is part of the Royal Library, where the funding bodies the Swedish Research Council, Forte, Formas and Vinnova account for 50 per cent of the total cost of the publishing fees during the contract period 15 July 2019 - 31 December 2021. The remaining 50 per cent stands each institution for.
The agreement includes journals from the following publisher labels, so-called imprints:
- BioMed Central (BMC) (313 journals)
- Springer Open Journals (216 journals)
- NatureResearch (46 journals, including Nature Communications and Scientific Reports)
- Palgrave Macmillan (1 journal)
During the contract period, all participants can publish a certain number of articles per year. The number of articles is not specified per organization, but the principle "first come, first served" is applied.
Taylor & Francis
In Taylor & Francis hybrid journals, you as a researcher at Södertörn University will publish open access without a publishing fee. In the agreement, the publishing fee is already prepaid as the agreement includes both the cost for the library's subscriptions and the cost for open access publishing.
During the contract period, all participants can publish a certain number of articles per year. The number of articles is not specified per organization, but the principle "first come, first served" is applied.
Wiley
In Wiley's approximately 1,400 hybrid journals and 150 fully open titles, you as a researcher at Södertörn University can publish openly available without publication fee. Wiley's contract model means that it is not possible to predict exactly how many articles are covered by the agreement. The agreement applies from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2022.
Search for journals included in publisher agreements
SciFree is a tool where you search for a journal to see if it is included in one of the publisher agreements above. You can see if you can publish OA free of charge or with a discount, if the journal is fully OA or a hybrid, and if it applies any specific Creative Commons license.
Watch out for predatory publishers
New publishers often contact researchers with publishing offers, demanding APCs. It is a good idea double check the quality of a publisher before accepting any deal.
- OASPA, a community of established Open Access publishers.
- Guide to review OA publishers The University of Borås maintains this exhaustive guide for researchers.
- ThinkCheckSubmit, a check list for trusted journals.
FAIR principles
It has become increasingly common for funding bodies to require researchers to take FAIR principles into account when applying for research funding. The concept of FAIR stands for data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.
The overall message of the FAIR principles is that the research that is funded by public funds should be as accessible and useful as possible for both humans and machines. The principles have so far mainly been applied to research data when writing data management plans but are also applicable for scientific publications.
If you would like to read more, see the GO FAIR's more detailed description of the FAIR principles.
Read more about Open Access
Creative Commons is a type of license that you as an author can use to show others how they may use your work. You can take advantage of this template to find a Creative Commons license that suits your publication.
Plan S - is a European initiative to accelerate the progress towards making research results accessible to all. The Swedish funders Vinnova, Forte and Formas has joined the initiative.
Page updated
16-04-2021