Open Access

About

Green open access is a type of open access that allows authors to self-archive their accepted manuscripts in an institutional repository or subject repository, either upon acceptance or after an embargo period.

Benefits

Green open access does not require any article processing charges or open access fees. Researchers can avoid expensive fees, while still making their research freely available to anyone by sharing their work through green open access. Making research openly available through green open access can help increase the visibility and impact of research, regardless of a researcher's ability to pay an article processing charge or open access fee.

Publisher Policies

Not all publishers offer green open access options. When choosing a journal to submit your research to, it's important to consider the open access options offered by the publisher. Be sure to check the journal or publisher's policies regarding self-archiving, sharing your work, or green open access. Carefully read author and copyright transfer agreements to ensure you choose a publisher that allows you to openly share certain versions of your work. 

If you have already submitted your article to a journal or if it has already been published and you want to share it openly in UDSpace, our team will research the journal or publisher's policies. We will inform you of which versions that can be shared, as well as any conditions that need to be followed, such as embargo periods.

Learn More:

University of California Libraries. (2018). Pathways to Open Access. UC Office of the President: University of California Systemwide Libraries. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gc4r5mg

Sharing your work openly through green open access is easy at the University of Delaware. The library provides a mediated process, so researchers can effortlessly deposit their publications in UDSpace. Here is how the deposit process works:

Step 1: Let us know about your research

• Contact our Open Access team and tell us about your new publications.
  • You can reach out via our UDSpace deposit form: http://www.udel.edu/009924 or by email.
  • You do not have to wait to contact us. As soon as an article is accepted, let us know!

Step 2: We will gather information about your research

• We will gather information about your item, find out how it can be shared, and be in touch with you shortly.


• If the work has already been published elsewhere, the only information we need from you is:
  • Your name and UD email address - To let us keep you informed about the deposit process
  • The DOI, URL, or citation of your work - To help us gather information about your material
  • A copy of your work - Most green open access policies only allow the Accepted Manuscript (AM) version to be deposited in an institutional repository, but if your article was published under a creative commons license or agreement that allows sharing the publisher's version, you can send us the final published version. 


• If your work has not been published elsewhere, we will ask you for additional metadata. 

Step 3: Your research is shared openly in UDSpace

• After we research the journal/publisher's archiving and green open access policies, we will let you know if we can archive your work.
  • If the publisher's policies allow sharing in the IR, we will move forward with the deposit process.
  • If not, we will let you know, and will help you understand the publisher policies and copyright agreements of the journal and any other journals that you are interested in publishing in the future.
  
  
• The deposit process on our end includes:
  • Collecting metadata - We collect and create metadata about your work and create an item record in UDSpace
  • Determining embargo periods - If we determine from our research that a publisher requires an embargo period, we will use UDSpace's embargo functionality to make the article's metadata viewable, but article's contents would not be able to be viewed or downloaded until after the embargo period ends
  • Creating a item record and depositing the material in UDSpace - Once deposited, we will send you the URL to your openly available work in UDSpace

Publishing agreements usually explain the different versions of your work and how and where you are allowed to use and share these versions. Many publisher policies only allow the Accepted Manuscript to be deposited in institutional repositories like UDSpace.

Common Characteristics

Here are some common characteristics for the different versions of research as it moves through the publishing process:

• Submitted version:
  • Also known as the submitted manuscript or preprint
  • The version that was initially submitted to the journal
  • Has not been through peer-review, so it does not include any revisions from the review process
  • Has not been copy-edited


• Accepted version:
  • Also known as the accepted manuscript (AM), author accepted manuscript, or post-print
  • Is peer-reviewed and includes all revisions
  • Has not been copy-edited, so it likely does not have any of the publisher’s branding or other enhancements


• Final version:
  • Also known as the version of record, published version, or publisher's version
  • Is the official version that appears in the journal
  • Is peer-reviewed and includes all revisions
  • Is copy-edited and type-set, so it likely has the publisher’s branding, and other enhancements

Versions of work during the publishing process:

"Green Open Access" from USU Open Access Support Research Guide is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Learn more:

Manuscript detectives – submitted, accepted or published?