Open access (OA) refers to a policy where scholarly work (articles, books, data) or other forms of digital research are made available on the web at no charge, to anyone who wants to access it with minimal copyright restrictions.

Open Access Explained! Video by Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics), CC-BY.

 

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University of Rochester Guidelines on Open Access Publishing

In accordance with our mission to make the world ever better, the University of Rochester (UR) commits to making knowledge generated at the UR as openly accessible as possible. Barriers to knowledge access are a significant source of academic inequity that the University seeks to remove.

 

As such, the University anticipates and encourages that all scholarly articles1 by UR affiliated authors will be freely accessible to all.

 

Such expectations may be achieved by sharing academic works or pre-publication versions of them through an open-access model or outlet, or deposition in an open-access repository or archive2.

Notes

1Scholarly articles describe the fruits of scholarly or research activity, including but not limited to: pre-prints, working papers, peer-reviewed articles, conference proceedings, dissertations, theses, or other formats relevant to specific disciplines. These guidelines do not apply to books, or musical scores and recordings, to articles whose publication in an open manner would result in conflict with other existing UR policies (e.g., intellectual property policy), to articles co-authored with other institutions who may not have such expectations, or to items subject to an embargo prohibiting open access (until the embargo is lifted).

2Open-access model, outlet, repository or archive refers to a publication system in which scholarly work is distributed digitally, free of charge, and free of most copyright restrictions. Examples include OA journals, pre-print servers, or institutional repositories. Details of such outlets, appropriate to academic disciplines, are available below.

Approved by the UR Faculty Senate on 04/15/2025.

Benefits of Open Access

Depending on the resources’ licensing terms, users can find, view, download, print, copy, reuse, and even modify them for any (lawful) purpose, usually without financial, legal, or other barriers. In addition to reduced barriers, open access increases the visibility and availability of the author’s work.  Universities who embrace open access journals and publishers can mitigate the effects of enormous subscription fees.

When important research is made available faster and to a greater number of people, everyone benefits.

Open Access provides: More exposure for your work. Practitioners can apply your findings. Higher citation rates. Your research can influence policy. The public can access your findings. Compliant with grant rules. Taxpayers get value for money. Researchers in developing countries can see your work.
Benefits of Open Access. Image by Danny Kingsley & Sarah Brown from Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY.

Publishing Open Access

Although open access is intended to make research available at no charge, there are still upfront costs involved in making this happen. Because this is a relatively new practice, there are still various economic models being tested to see what works best, and which are most equitable for all parties involved.

Some publishers use “Closed” or subscription-based models, which require payment for access. Those looking to offer free access to materials, typically use one of five common OA models—the most popular being “Gold” and “Green.”  You can learn more about the models in the table below.

Open Access Publishing Models
Bronze
Bronze. Peer reviewed articles published in subscription journals. Authors transfer copyright to the publisher. Publishers make articles freely accessible to the world based on marketing reasons. Free access can be rescinded at any time.
Hybrid
Hybrid or Gold-hybrid. Peer reviewed articles published in subscription journals. Authors may retain copyright. Authors pay an additional fee to make their articles open access to the world. Other articles in the journal are accessible only through library subscriptions or individual purchases. Mix of open access and subscription.
Gold
Gold. Peer reviewed articles published in full open access journals. Authors may retain copyright. Authors may pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publishers to cover their publication costs. All articles in the journal are open access to the world through Creative Commons licenses.
Diamond
Diamond. Peer reviewed articles published in open access journals. Authors may retain copyright. Authors do not pay article processing charges to publishers. Institutional funds support all publications costs. All articles in the journal are open access to the world through Creative Commons licenses.
Green
Green. Un-refereed preprint articles or refereed post-print articles published in archives or repositories. Authors retain copyright. All manuscripts are free to read or open access --usually through Creative Commons licenses-- and available to the world in perpetuity. Some licensing restrictions may apply for articles submitted to subscription publishers.

Table by Moriana Garcia, University of Rochester, CC-BY. Images modified from Pixabay (Pixabay License).

Advancing Open Access at Rochester

University of Rochester-affiliated authors who are interested in sharing their research in an open access format can work with liaison librarians at the River Campus Libraries, Miner Libraries, or Sibley Library to identify potential venues, including open access journals, book publishers, and disciplinary repositories.

Here are some services and options to consider if you are willing to open your research:

  • Take advantage of the libraries’ OA agreements with academic publishers to void or greatly discount article processing charges or book processing charges. Ask your librarian about specific agreements.
  • Consult the Open Policy Finder--to check on individual journal copyright and open access policies or funders’ requirements for data archiving and publication-- and take advantage of green OA options for your preprint or accepted manuscript (PubMed Central, NSF PAR, OSTI, etc.).
  • Submit your preprint to an open repository such as arXiv, bioRxiv, OSF Preprints, SSRN, CORE, ChemRxiv, medRxiv, etc., if authorized by your target journal/publisher. Ask your librarian for additional disciplinary repository options.
  • Deposit your data or other documents linked to your scholarship (eg. Supplementary Information) to an open repository, such as the UR Research Repository, Dryad or Zenodo. Check re3data to explore other options or ask your librarian.
  • Contact our Scholarly Communications Team to explore options for opening up previous publications.
  • Add your paper to the UR Research Repository, Rochester’s new institutional repository on Figshare. Contact the library to learn more about the submission process.
  • If a publisher does not offer open access options, you are encouraged to append the University’s Authors’ Addenda to your publishing contract. If approved, the addenda gives you permission to share your work on the university’s institutional repository or your personal website.

 

To learn more about OA publishing, schedule a consultation with a scholarly communication specialist:

Open Access Agreements

Below is a list of current library agreements at Rochester that support OA. Ask your librarian for more information or explore our guide on Open Access Support at UR.

Subscribe to our listserv -- OpenS -- to receive information about future University Libraries' agreements with publishers and other Open Access news. 

 

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