Open Access is becoming an ever more important part of the publishing workflow for many of you. Nowadays publishing Open Access is required by funders such as NWO (article should be open immediately upon publication) and the ERC FP7/Horizon 2020 (article should be open within 6 months after publication) and stimulated by Leiden University and the Dutch government. The goal of the Dutch government is that in 2018 60 per cent of all peer reviewed journal articles is Open Access; for 2020 the EU wants to reach a full 100 per cent Open Access. Leiden University stimulates Open Access by sending you a reminder when a publication is added to your research profile without a pdf attached (the so-called Stolker-email).
Free Open Access at over 8.000 hybrid Open Access journals
Leiden University Library has agreements with over 8.000 different journals where you can publish Open Access with no or a reduced APC fee, as part of the library subscription. Among the publishers we have deals with, are: American Chemical Society, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Royal Society of Chemistry, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Thieme, Walter de Gruyter and Wiley.
- Our page on Open Access: https://www.library.universiteitleiden.nl/research-and-publishing/open-access
- The workflows for Open Access: http://www.openaccess.nl
- Have a look at the interactive list: https://library.tips/open-access-tools/journal-list/
To use these deals you have to comply with some basic conditions:
- The corresponding author has to work at one of the dutch universities; please note, anyone can be made corresponding author, you do not have to be the first author, and some articles can have more than one corresponding author.
- Use your Leiden University email address for validation.
- Check the journal in the lists (fully open access journals are usually excluded from the deal) and make sure to select Open Access for the publication license.
Open Access in fully open journals (such as PLoS One)
Is your preferred journal not in this list? If you are funded by NWO, you can request up to 6.000 euro for Open Access publishing per project: https://www.nwo.nl/financiering/onze-financieringsinstrumenten/nwo/stimuleringsfonds-open-access/stimuleringsfonds-open-access—publicaties/stimuleringsfonds-open-access—publicaties.html . For older ERC funded projects from FP7 there is a repair fund available: https://www.openaire.eu/postgrantoapilot . Otherwise, have a look at the green possibilities mentioned earlier.
For both funds the journal you publish in has to be fully open; in other words, no articles in it should be behind a paywall. These journals are usually not covered in the library big deals, as the costs for Open Access are a part of the subscription fees we pay.
Gold or green?
If you want to publish Open Access while there is no deal and you have no budget to pay for Article Processing Costs, usually 1.000-3.000 euros per article, the green (free) route may be a good alternative. In this case you can use your own author’s version and add it to our Lucris repository and Arxiv (http://www.arxiv.org/ ) or Biorxiv (http://www.biorxiv.org/ ). To find out what is allowed for the particular journal you use, for example: sometimes an embargo period has to be respected before the article can be shared, have a look at Sherpa/Romeo: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php
For information on how to add your pdf to the Leiden repository (you can set an embargo period to open it up automatically at the right date): https://www.library.universiteitleiden.nl/research-and-publishing/scholarly-publishing/register-your-publications-in-lucris-and-the-leiden-repository
Opportunities: why should you publish OA?
For you as a researcher Open Access means you will be more visible and your research results can be shared with much more ease than before. You will not loose access to your publications once you have left university; journalists and companies have better access to your work, leading to new collaborations and extra publicity; teachers do not have to worry about expensive copyright licenses when they use your articles in class; you may add your article to Researchgate (if it is gold Open Access) and the repository and the Open Access version will be indexed by large scholarly search engines such as Google Scholar, leading to more citations.
Making your article Open Access does not mean you have to change your preferred journal as all major journals offer Open Access possibilities. If you are doubting between several journals however, have a look at the cost of the different journals as part of your consideration.
If you have any questions regarding Open Access, the deals or if you encounter problems while making your article open, please contact either Rutger de Jong, r.m.de.jong@library.leidenuniv.nl (subject librarian science) or Michelle van den Berk, m.van.den.berk@library.leidenuniv.nl (subject librarian open access).
