Open access
Open Access (OA) means free of charge and immediate web access to the data and results of publicly funded scientific research:
- It is a high potential dissemination and impact model, alternative or supplementary to the traditional publishing market model;
- It’s related to scientific and educational literature made voluntarily available by Authors to the community, in an immediate and free way, thanks to the abolition of some of the restrictions provided by publishing licences with respect to the rights of economic exploitation;
- It applies to the data of publicly funded research (with the exclusion of sensitive or patented data);
- the fundamental principle is that “the results of publicly funded research must be publicly available”.
Open Access publications are quality scientific products, since they are validated after a careful peer-review process: this guarantees greater visibility and more effective dissemination of research works; the growth of prestige and impact; more recognisability and reputation of researchers, also beyond their scientific community of reference.
Contrary to common belief, those who publish in Open Access, can more easily defend themselves from plagiarism: if the web simplifies access to content, at the same time it allows them to more easily identify any illegal use of their publications. It is important that the Authors agree, through the appropriate tools, upon a publishing contract protecting them and guaranteeing the maintenance of their rights.
Open access entails two publishing strategies:
The green road: self-archiving of one’s own scientific articles in open disciplinary or institutional archives, in accordance to the publishers’ copyright policies. This is an immediate and costless way.
The gold road: publication in open access, peer reviewed periodicals, freely available and free of charge. This way might involve costs for the Authors (or for their institution), because various journals require the payment of publication fees.
Recently, there is also talk of “hybrid road” (red road): it is the options offered by many commercial publishers who require a payment for the open access publication of individual articles (APC, Article Processing Charge) in a journalstill sold by subscription (Author-pays solution).
Open access peer-reviewed journals contain validated articles, are indexed in the main citation databases and often have high impact factor indices. Some publishers provide for an embargo period: that is, the article may be freely accessible after a certain time of its publication (generally six or twelve months); It is always good to inquire in advance with the publisher on the policies adopted in this regard. To meet the costs, many publishers request a contribution by Authors, who thus finance the publication of their research with their own funds, guaranteeing its free dissemination and remaining the owner of the incumbent rights. Furthermore, Authors must pay close attention to the so-called predatory publishers, who offer, for a fee, publication in open access journals, without guaranteeing quality editorial services or rigorous peer review.
Open archives (repositories) may be:
Institutional: if they collect the intellectual production in digital format of a University of research agency or of a set of scientific institutions;
Disciplinary: if they are dedicated to a specific subject.
Through self-archiving, Authors deposit their scientific works in compliance with copyright regulations: in this way, publication in prestigious and high-impact journals is not excluded, but the ways of accessing the text are broadened. The contents of the articles can be queried, thanks to the associated metadata, and freely consulted online through the main search engines.
With respect to the articles, it is possible to deposit in an open archive one or more versions among:
• Preprint: draft (manuscript) of the Author before submission to the publisher (pre-refereeing draft)
• Postprint: final version of the article already accepted following the peer review ("refereed") but still with the layout of the Author (final draft post-refereeing)
• Publisher's version: final version of the article paginated with the publisher's layout.
Open archives ensure long-term preservation and contain material that does not violate contracts signed with publishers. To find out about the publishers' policies regarding self-archiving and the conditions in which it is possible (version to be archived, timing of the deposit, particular restrictions) you can consult the Sherpa Romeo database.
In the last years the concept of Open Access has expanded and today we talk about Open Science, to indicate free access to the different phases and different tools used in research: data (Open Data); the results available in monographs, scientific articles and other documents (Open Access); the teaching material (Open Educational Resources); research methodologies (Open Methodology); software (Open Source); peer reviewing, useful for verifying the quality of scientific works (Open Peer review). Open science also includes the dissemination of research among citizens, with all the available communication tools.
To publish open access at UniPA: transformative agreements, University funds.
To publish open access at UniPA: transformative agreements, University funds.
Transformative agreements allow UniPa authors to publish open access articles without paying the APCs, as these costs are already included in the agreement between the University and the following publishers:
● ACS [Temporarily suspended pending agreement renewal]
● IEEE
● IOP
● Springer
● Wiley [Temporarily suspended pending agreement renewal]
Funds allocated for University research
In order to find out if funds are available for open access publication with payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs), you can contact the offices of the Research and Technology Transfer Area or the administrative offices of your department.
De Gruyter
The Palermo University Library System has signed the national transformative contract with the publisher De Gruyter for the period 2023-2025. This contract allows authors affiliated with the University of Palermo to publish their research products in open access in the publisher’s ‘hybrid’ journals without any additional costs.
Here are the key points of the agreement:
● Open Access: Authors affiliated with the University of Palermo can publish their articles without additional charges
● Corresponding Author: To benefit from these advantages, the author must be the corresponding author of the proposed publication.
● Institutional Email Address: It is explicitly required for the corresponding author to use exclusively an institutional email address (@unipa), in addition to mentioning the university they belong to. It is expressly requested that the Corresponding author use and indicate, in addition to the University to which he belongs, an institutional e-mail address (@unipa) exclusively.
● Choice of Open Access: The corresponding author can decide whether to publish the article in open access or not. If they opt for "Open Access" publication in a hybrid journal, the approved article will be immediately available under a CC BY license, allowing the author to retain all rights.
● Publication Flow Management: The publication process is managed on the publisher’s platform, and the confirmation of the corresponding author’s affiliation with the University of Palermo is provided by the Library System offices, through CARE-CRUI.
● APC Tokens: Publication in open access without additional costs will be possible until the APC token fund is exhausted. The quota is renewed annually, and if the tokens are depleted, CARE-CRUI will communicate it to the University
Here is the list of journals in which you can publish according to the described methods.
For further details, you can write to: pubblicazione_openaccess@unipa.it.
Elsevier
The University has joined the transformative contract signed between CRUI-CARE and Elsevier (Science Direct) for the period 2023-2027, for access to electronic journals and open-access publications free of charge to the authors. The main points of the agreement are the following
● Authors affiliated to the University of Palermo can publish research products with open access, free of charge, in nearly 1,600 Hybrid journals and in Cell Press journals acquired by the University (updated list of eligible journals as of May 2024 - “Hybrid eligible” and “Cell Press eligible” sheets).
● In 2023 and 2024, it is also possible to publish open-access articles in the publisher’s Gold open-access journals (updated list of eligible journals as of May 2024 - “Gold OA eligible” sheet). This pilot project, planned for the first two years of the contract, will be evaluated by CRUI-CARE and the publisher in order to determine its continuation in the following years.
● The standard license is Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. Authors retain all rights to the published article, which can be deposited in the institutional repository of the University (IRIS) and made accessible on the author’s personal website immediately after publication by the publisher. Authors can also choose the CC BY-NC-ND license.
● In order to take advantage of the benefits, the author must be the corresponding author of the article proposed for publication and, at the time of article submission, must mention the University of Palermo as the affiliated institution.
● It is expressly required that the corresponding author uses and indicates only an institutional email address (@unipa - @community.unipa - @you.unipa).
● The scientific articles (subject to peer review) that can be published in “eligible” journals include: Original Papers, Review Papers, and Case Reports. From 2025, Short Communications will also be eligible article types.
● The publication workflow is managed on the publisher's platform (Elsevier OA Platform - EOAP): once the corresponding author completes the post-acceptance procedure and opts for Open Access, the University (through the appropriate offices of the library system) will validate the correct affiliation of the corresponding author; within 24 hours, the article will be published on the Science Direct platform with open access.
● for the biennium 2023-2024, the contract covers the costs of articles accepted for publication within a maximum number shared among all the entities adhering to the contract. Starting from 2025, the contract will cover an unlimited number of articles in hybrid journals, while for full open access journals a renegotiation between the parties is expected.
For further details, you can write to: pubblicazione_openaccess@unipa.it.
IEEE
The University has joined the transformative agreement signed between CRUI-CARE and IEEE for the period 2022-2024, for access to electronic journals and open-access publications free of charge to the authors in all the publisher’s “hybrid” and ‘gold open access’ journals (list of journals). The main points of the agreement are the following:
● Authors affiliated to the University of Palermo can publish their research products in open access without additional costs for them, with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
● In orderto take advantage of the facilities, the author must be the corresponding author of the article proposed for publication and must indicate the University of Palermo as the affiliation institution at the time of article submission.
● It is expressly required that the corresponding author uses and indicates exclusively an institutional email address (@unipa).
● The types of eligible articles are: Regular Paper; Review Paper; Brief; Invited; Survey.
● The publication process is managed on the publisher's platform; the University (through the appropriate offices of the Library System) will validate the correct affiliation of the corresponding author. As with other transformative contracts managed by CARE-CRUI, there is no pre-established allocation of the fund for open access publishing among the Institutions."
For further details, you can write to: pubblicazione_openaccess@unipa.it.
IOP
The Palermo Library System has renewed, through the CRUI-CARE consortium, for the period 2022-2025, the national contract with the IOP publisher for access to electronic journals and (as a “transformative” agreement) for open access publishing, without costs for the authors, in all the publisher’s hybrid and “gold open access” journals (excluding titles from the American Astronomical Society). Within the publication workflow managed by the publisher, the corresponding author interested in publishing their article in open access can indicate their affiliation by selecting the appropriate option in the related form. The author will be identified as “eligible” to use the option through at least one of the following parameters: name of the institution/affiliation or email domain (it is recommended to always indicate the @unipa email address).
The editorial version of the article on the IOP platform will include all the necessary metadata (including, for example, the name and email address of the corresponding author, the full name of the authors’ affiliation and any other affiliations, the acceptance date, the journal title, the journal’s e-issn, the article title, and the type of article). The “open” article will be accompanied by a Creative Commons “CC-BY” 4.0 license. The Publisher will provide the University with a monthly report and an annual statement with all the articles accepted and published in the reference period. If the University does not recognize the corresponding author as affiliated with UniPa, the publisher will reserve the right to offer the corresponding author the possibility to pay the APC outside the contract, therefore with their own funds, or to publish in a different way.
For further details, you can write to the email: pubblicazione_openaccess@unipa.it
Springer
Starting from July 2020, authors from Universities that sign the Springer contract under the CARE-CRUI agreement (including the University of Palermo) have the opportunity to publish their article in “open access” mode without having to pay the APC (Article Processing Charge) as it is already included in the contract. Below are the main points of this important update:
● This possibility is provided for over 2,000 journals out of the nearly 2,400 that the University subscribes to.
● The choice to publish in open access is up to the corresponding author, who makes the decision during the article submission process through simple steps.
● If the author chooses to publish in “open” mode, they will retain the copyright (which would otherwise pass to the publisher) and will be free to share, copy, and use their own article without constraints.
● The “open” article will be accompanied by a Creative Commons “CC-BY” license, except for some individual journals that require “CC-BY-NC”: both allow sharing and modifying but under different conditions.
● The publication process is managed on the publisher's platform, in a simple and quick manner: after the publication is accepted by the peer reviewers, Springer identifies the affiliation of the corresponding author who will make the submission using the institutional email address of UniPa or the institutional IP or the name of the University; the corresponding author can decide whether to publish in open access; the University (through the appropriate offices of the Library System) will validate the correct affiliation of the corresponding author.
● Based on the national contract managed by CARE-CRUI, the number of open access publications progressively decreases until exhausted: CARE-CRUI will be aware of the publication trends of all the Universities involved while the individual University will have information exclusively on the open publication choices made by their corresponding authors. Therefore, the individual University does not hold a precise quantity of open publications to use; the total number of open access publications available concerns the entire consortium and it is managed centrally by CARE-CRUI. This number is managed on an annual basis, so each year of the contract (which lasts until 2024) the quota of articles available for the consortium Universities starts over.
For further details, you can write to the email: pubblicazione_openaccess@unipa.it.
Transformative agreements: number of articles published by the authors
| Publisher |
Total articles (updated to May 23, 2024) |
Transformative agreement |
| ACS* | 46 |
Actived from 2020 to 2023 being renewed in the 2024 |
| De Gruyter* | 20 | Active since 2021 |
| Science Direct | 243 | Active since 2023 |
| IEEE* | 27 | Active since 2022 |
| IOP | 10 | Active since 2023 |
| Springer | 301 | Active since 2020 |
| Wiley | 111 |
Actived from 2021 to 2023 being renewed in the 2024 |