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 External link, opens in new window. (The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies), Vetenskapsrådet External link, opens in new window. (The Swedish Research Council), Forte (the Swedish Reserach Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare) External link, opens in new window. and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences) External link, opens in new window. 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 External link, opens in new window. (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 External link, opens in new window.. 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). Pdf, 5.5 MB, opens in new window.

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 External link, opens in new window..

Södertörn University encourages all contributors, authors and editors to consider publishing their work using a Creative Commons license External link, opens in new window. 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:

1. You can publish your text directly in an Open Access journal or in an Open Access monograph.
   
2. You can deposit/parallel publish a copy of your fulltext publication in an open repository such as DiVA.
3. You can publish your article Open Access in a hybrid journal.

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 take part in the agreements, 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.

The information about which publishers and agreements that Södertörn University participates in can be found at Medarbetarwebben External link..

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.

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 External link, opens in new window..

Read more about Open Access

Creative Commons External link, opens in new window. 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 External link, opens in new window. to find a Creative Commons license that suits your publication.

Plan S External link, opens in new window. - 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.