Solent Researchers

Purpose and context

Open research principles, including the prompt dissemination and accessibility of research outcomes are integral to Solent University’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Enabling Strategy. This open access policy is designed to ensure that Solent University meets the open access requirements for applicable research outputs, whilst encouraging the advancement of a broader open research culture.

UK Research and Innovation, the European Commission, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies now require their funding recipients to publish their applicable research outputs in accordance with their policies on open access. This policy is separate to funding body open access policies.

Scope

This policy applies to all authors of research outputs including academics, researchers, administrative staff, and students, who produce outputs from their research. This includes outputs that are created, co-created, authored, or coauthored by Solent University staff as well as those affiliated with Solent University. This policy also applies to authors who co-author with national and international collaborators.

This policy applies to all original peer-reviewed journal articles and conference contributions published with an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).

Solent University’s institutional repository, Pure, is maintained as a permanent and secure online archive. Pure provides the single point of public access to electronic copies of research outputs.

Policy requirements and author responsibilities

• Authors are free to publish in publications they believe to be the most appropriate, whilst also complying with this policy in addition to any funding body requirements.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining clearance for the rights that any third parties may hold in a research output before it is deposited in Pure, checking that journal and publishers’ open access policies are compliant with this policy, and confirming allowable embargo periods.
• Authors must ensure that their applicable research outputs are uploaded to the institutional repository, Pure, within three months of acceptance for publication. This will consist of the author accepted manuscript, or for gold open access publications, the version of record. To upload research outputs to Pure, authors should email pure@solent.ac.uk or use the Pure deposit form.
• Authors must ensure that their journal articles and conference contributions acknowledge the source of funding, carry the correct institutional affiliation: “Solent University”. Where possible authors should include their ORCID.
• Solent University researchers are expected to share research data as openly as possible, where ethical, legal, or commercial considerations permit. Authors should include a statement on how the underlying research materials can be accessed. Authors should refer to the University’s Open Research Data Policy.
• Authors should make applicable research outputs available under a CC BY licence, to maximise the re-use potential of the research. This policy recognises that exceptions may be necessary for contractual and ethical reasons. 
• Authors should deposit other research outputs, including but not limited to, book chapters, monographs, reports, artistic creations, compositions, exhibitions in the institutional repository, Pure, at the earliest possible date.
• In accordance with the University’s commitment to open research and knowledge exchange, wherever possible, authors are encouraged to make their research outputs open access. This includes, but is not limited to, research data, monographs, video and audio files, code, tools, and creative works.
• Authors must notify the Research Support Librarian, by emailing pure@solent.ac.uk as soon as possible, of any exceptional circumstances affecting their ability to deposit outputs in line with this policy.

University responsibilities

• The University recommends the green route to achieving open access compliance as the most cost effective, sustainable way to achieve greater public access to research outputs and supports green open access through its institutional repository, Pure.
• The University will normally support gold open access where funding is made available for this purpose by the research funder, or if a publishing agreement exists. Authors should contact the library for advice on open access publishing.
• In exceptional circumstances, an author may apply to the Chair of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee for support for a gold route submission. Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
• The Research Office will support authors to ensure compliance with this policy and funder open access policies.

Glossary

Author accepted manuscript (AAM): the final authored version of the manuscript, which includes any finished changes made as part the peer-review process, that has been accepted for publication by the journal. Documents that have been typeset or copyedited by the publisher (such as proofs or the final published version) are not AAMs, but articles written in a publisher-supplied template are acceptable.

Article processing charges (APCs): charges levied by a publisher to publish a research article as gold open access. Charges can range from hundreds to several thousands of pounds per article.

Gold open access: likely to require the up-front payment of article processing charges (APCs) to cover the costs of publishing in a fully open access or hybrid journals. Peer-reviewed journal articles and conference contributions published with an ISSN then appear online and can be accessed immediately for free, even without a journal subscription.

Green open access: delivered primarily via self-archiving in an online repository such as the institutional repository, Pure. The output that is deposited is the author accepted manuscript (AAM), although in some cases the publisher allows the final published version to be deposited. The AAMs deposited within Pure are often embargoed for a certain amount of time dictated by the publisher, before being made openly accessible.

Open access: making research publications freely available so anyone can benefit from reading and re-using research. Most funders only require peer-reviewed journal articles and conference contributions published with an ISSN to be open access, but other types of outputs, such as monographs, can also be published open access.

ORCID: provides a persistent digital identifier that a researcher owns and controls, and that distinguishes researchers from one another.