Open Access & Scholarly Communications

"Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment" (SPARC, 2022)

Resources:

• The 2001 Budapest Open Access Initiative, a document produced as the culmination of a landmark conference, represents a seminal moment in OA history. 

• The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is a globally-influential OA organization that offers a rich array of online resources. 

• For a quick and lively introduction to OA, see this animated introduction to OA video from 2012 by PhD comics, narrated in part by Nick Shockey of SPARC. 

• “Open Con” is a leading annual conference on OA issues. Find their twitter feed here. 

• The focus and vision of the OA movement has changed over time. Watch Denisse Albornoz explain how today’s OA community aims to create a more inclusive vision of openness than in times past:  “Power and Inequality in Open Access Discourses” (from Open Con 2017). 

These are generalizations, policies may vary publisher to publisher.

Publication agreements with journal publishers usually transfer the copyright of an article to that publisher.  The SPARC Canadian author addendum is a PDF file that an author can sign and attach to a publisher's agreement.

The agreement states that the author retains certain non-commerical rights such as the right to make copies for a class or to post the article on a personal or institutional web site while transferring the copyright to the publisher.

Through licenses with CRKN, Lakehead is able to offer discounts to APCs (Article Processing Charges) with the following publishers:

Content courtesy of CRKN

Cambridge University Press Publishing in Hybrid and Gold Open Access Journals

As of January 1, 2022, authors affiliated with Lakehead will be able to publish an unlimited number of their articles as open access in Cambridge hybrid and gold journals at no charge for the duration of the agreement. The following five article types are included in this Open Access publishing portion of this agreement:

• Research articles
• Review articles
• Rapid communication
• Brief reports
• Case reports

Ineligible article types include:

• Book reviews
• Discussions
• Editorials
• Introductions
• Letters
• Meeting reports
• Proceedings
• Book chapters

As to how the discount is applied, it is very straightforward. When an author completes their initial author publishing agreement, they simply choose “Open Access” as a part of this form. From there, the Lakehead Library has automatically configured the process so that the discount is applied with no further action on the part of the author. 

SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP)

Starting on January 1, 2021, authors affiliated with Lakehead will be able to publish articles in SAGE Choice hybrid journals under an open access license with no associated Article Processing Charge (APC).

SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) is a centralized portal that automates SAGE’s open access publication process. Lakehead-affiliated authors are entitled to a 40% discount on the Article Processing Charge (APC) on Gold Open Access journals. The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process. For more information, see the PDF documents in the “Related Documents” section below.

• Authors identify their institution affiliation upon manuscript submission.
• Authors are notified by email of article acceptance. They are also notified of their eligibility for the 40% APC discount.
• Within the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP), authors can accept or decline to publish their article open access.
• If an author declines to publish in open access, their article will be published via the subscription route.
• In the Portal, the author can select their copyright license and assign a payer (i.e. funding agency, institution, or a different bill payer), and make the APC payment.

View the spreadsheet below for SAGE APC discount exclusions.

Applying a Taylor & Francis APC discount

To take advantage of the discount on T&F Open Select hybrid journals, an author can submit an article and choose the open access publishing option. When the APC is generated, authors can select their institution from the drop-down menu, and the discount will be automatically applied. The author can select a Creative Commons license to sign once they accept the quote. Visit Taylor & Francis' website for further details on the process.

Related Documents (click to download)

• SAGE: List of Excluded Titles from CRKN APC Discount
• Elsevier: List of Eligible Titles for CRKN APC Discount
• SAGE: How to use SAGE Open Access Portal (Gold Journals)
• Elsevier: "Author Journey" (incl. CRKN APC Discount process)
• Elsevier: List of Titles Excluded from APC Discount
• Cambridge University Press: Step by Step Guide to Publishing Open Access
• Institute of Physics: List of Titles Included and Excluded from Agreement

Content courtesy of CRKN

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is the largest collection of open access journals. Another site is the Open Access Journals Search Engine (OAJSE). Some publishers also maintain lists of their own open access journals such as:

• ScienceDirect Open Access Journal Directory
• Oxford University Press
• Wiley
• Sage which features Sage Open, a multidisciplinary OA journal
• Taylor and Francis/Routledge
• Thomson Reuters Open Access Journal Title List

The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) maintains a list of academic repositories.  You can search by repository name, institution or by searching the contents (i.e. article title or author name).

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries maintains a list of Canadian academic repositories.

You may also find repositories on an individual university's website.

Simmons maintains a list of discipline-based repositories and, new in 2015, is CHORUS (Clearinghouse for the Open Reseach of the United States), designed specifically to comply with funder requirements for open access and working with publishers.