Open Access publishing initiatives increase access to published research, particularly publicly funded research. There are two main types of open access:
Green open access: This is immediate or delayed open access that is provided through self-archiving your papers in a compliant repository.
Gold open access: Open Access at the point of publication. Often through the payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs)
This is immediate or delayed open access that is provided through self-archiving. The library provides green open access through the University's Research Repository. It is an open access database of published and unpublished work by UL faculty and researchers.
Gold open access: This is immediate open access that is provided by a publisher either in a fully open access journal or a hybrid journal.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides a list of quality open access journals. If the journal you are considering publishing in is not included in the DOAJ then check with a Librarian to ensure that is legitimate.
APCs are Article Processing Charges (or Author Publication Charges), fees sometimes charged by publishers to allow an author's publication to be made immediately available on Open Access. Check each publisher's OA policy regarding charges before you decide where to publish.
Creative Commons (CC) licences do not replace copyright. By adopting CC licences authors allow others to use their published work more flexibly. We recommend that you first check if your funding body requires or prefers a specific licence.
The most common CC licences are:
CC BY: This licence lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licences offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
CC BY-NC: This licence lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
CC BY-NC-ND: This licence is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
University of limerick's Research Repository is the means by which staff make their publications and other research outputs accessible to an external audience.
University of Limerick authors can use the repository to make their research outputs Open Access via the Green Route.
As the material is freely available online to anybody with access to the Internet, the potential readership of open access articles far exceeds that of articles where the full text is restricted to subscribers. This increased visibility can result in raising profiles and citations for researchers.
More details on the repository and how to submit can be found in the Research Repository guide.
Creative Commons (CC) licences do not replace copyright. By adopting CC licences authors allow others to use their published work more flexibly. We recommend that you first check if your funding body requires or prefers a specific licence.
The most common CC licences are:
CC BY: This licence lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licences offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC: This licence lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-NC-ND: This licence is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.