Open Access

POLICY NO: RES-20.0

DATE OF APPROVAL: Academic Board 27 September 2013

Amendment : Deputy Vice Chancellor  Vice President: Research  Enterprise 22 December 2020

REFERENCE AUTHORITY: Deputy Vice Chancellor & Vice President: Research & Enterprise

CROSS REFERENCES:

Authorship Policy (RES-12)
Ownership and Retention of Data (RES-17)
University Activities - Intellectual Property: Ownership and Commercialisation Guidelines
Academic Regulations for Higher Degrees by Research
 
Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
ARC Open Access Policy
NHMRC revised policy on the dissemination of research findings


Preamble

The conduct of research and the sharing of research outcomes is integral to the idea and purpose of a university. The purpose of the open access policy is to support the free flow of information and contribute to the sharing and verification of research findings. It is intended to increase the visibility of researchers and the University and facilitate the dissemination and recognition of University of South Australia research and scholarly outputs as widely as possible across the global research community.

The University is committed to optimising the benefits of the research it undertakes through collecting, storing and making research publications accessible in such a way as to ensure they are available to the wider research community. The Open Access Policy is a natural extension of the existing University mandate to publish research findings.

This policy enables the University to fulfil its open access responsibilities as articulated in the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) revised policy on the dissemination of research findings, the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Open Access Policy and by bodies such as Coalition S funders who may stipulate specific open access funding conditions.

To meet the University’s obligations, as detailed in this policy, secure and effective storage of research publications is required. This is achieved through the Research Outputs Repository (ROR).

This policy is intended to provide guidance on the submission of staff and postgraduate research students’ scholarly publications and other research outputs to the Research Outputs Repository (ROR). It should be read in conjunction with the University’s Authorship Policy and Policy on the Ownership and retention of Data.

Compliance with this policy automatically confers compliance with ARC and NHMRC open access mandates.

Scope

This policy applies to scholarly publications and other published research outputs arising from publicly funded research produced by the following;

  • research, academic, teaching and professional staff
  • holders of honorary academic titles conferred by the University
  • research higher degree and research professional doctoral candidates.

Material to be commercialised or which contains confidential material or material for which the promulgation would infringe a legal commitment by the University or the author must be deposited but will not be made accessible as open access. Metadata for this material will be deposited.

Research outputs which are subject to confidentiality, privacy, trade secrets, national security, commercial interests and to intellectual property rights (other than intellectual property rights solely held by the University) shall only be accessible in open access by formal agreement with all parties. In addition any data, know-how or information in whatever form which is held by private parties or by public/private partnerships prior to the conduct of research shall not fall under this policy.

Research data is outside the scope of this policy.

Policy

  1. Publications resulting in whole or in part from publicly funded research must be deposited in the ROR.

  2. Refereed outputs to be deposited include book chapters, journal articles, peer reviewed conference papers, creative textual works, reports and University research theses written, created, collected or compiled while the author / researcher is a member of staff or research student.

  3. Unrefereed scholarly outputs are also to be deposited into the ROR in order to build a complete record of University research activity. Access to scholarly publications not eligible for inclusion as part of the (HERDC) reportable process will be restricted to staff and students of the University of South Australia.

  4. Where possible whole publications associated with published research will be deposited.

  5. An electronic copy of the final refereed, revised draft (post-print) of each research or scholarly output of the University is to be deposited in the ROR by the author within one month of acceptance for publication.

  6. Deposited final versions will be made available in open access except where this is restricted by publisher agreements or embargo.

  7. The final publisher version will be the version made available through the ROR where there is agreement from the publisher for this version to be made open access.

  8. Publications presented as part of Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy (By Portfolio of Publications) are not required to be submitted.

  9. Digital theses submitted by doctoral, master of research and research professional doctorate candidates are to be deposited in the ROR. These outputs will normally be released in open access as provided for under Policy AB-58: Research Degrees.

  10. Depositing publications into ROR does not transfer copyright which remains with the author or publisher as provided in the publishing agreement.

  11. Open access to the full-text will be available as soon as is practicable and not later than twelve months after publication. Embargoes and access restrictions will be applied as necessary.

  12. Publications arising from grant funders with specific open access conditions must meet the dissemination requirements of such grants. This includes Plan S funders whom require that any publications resulting from their grants are made available immediately without embargo, that an open licence (CC-BY) is applied to either the post print or the final publisher version and that the copyright remains with the author/university.

Roles and responsibilities

The responsibility for ensuring that scholarly outputs are available through the ROR rests with the creator. The task of uploading or otherwise submitting scholarly outputs may be delegated.

The Deputy Vice Chancellor & Vice President: Research & Enterprise will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, monitoring compliance and recommending changes to the University policy from time to time.

Policy application

To ensure an appropriate lead time for the introduction of this policy it will apply to all research publications from 1 January 2014.

Effective date

Effective from the Date of Approval of the policy.

Definitions

Creative Commons is an internationally recognised licensing scheme which permits the sharing, reuse, repurpose and remix of creative material whilst also ensuring that creators retain the right to attribution as a minimum.

HERDC is the Higher Education Research Data Collection. The HERDC is performed annually by universities to report research income and research publication data to the Australian Government. The Australian Government uses the HERDC to allocate research block grants.

Metadata means the information describing an item, group of items or other research output. It is data about data and is used to describe both physical items and digital items (files, documents, images, datasets, etc.).

Open access means no-cost online access to research outputs subject to usage rights.

Post print means the manuscript version of an article accepted for publication following peer review and revision. In terms of appearance this may not be the same as the published article. Post print is also known as the author accepted manuscript (AAM) or the accepted version.

Final publisher version means the final version of the manuscript published in a journal with the journal's type-set and branding also known as the version of record or published version.

Refereed means papers or articles that satisfy external or peer review requirements of the scholarly journal or conference proceedings prior to publication.

Scholarly outputs are articles, papers, books and chapters, research reports, monograph series and working paper series written by researchers and scholars in their discipline. Scholarly outputs are often peer-reviewed.

Research Outputs Repository (ROR) is the University of South Australia's digital institutional repository. The repository includes metadata, publications and other scholarly outputs.