Yes, find out more about WestminsterResearchGo to WestminsterResearch page. WestminsterResearch is an example of Green Open Access, an Institutional Repository, which archives accepted publications where publisher policy allows.
It is University of Westminster policy that members of staff should deposit the final author-formatted version of all articles and conference papers. The metadata of non-textual material, including the outputs of practice-based material, should be added, including attachments where possible.
Open Access to publications arising from research grants is mandated by most funders, eg Wellcome Trust, UKRI, and the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe.
Following the completion of REF2021, a new open access policy is in development. Research England have advised that the current policy should be followed in the meantime. You should continue to upload your accepted manuscripts for journal articles and conference papers to the VRE within three months of acceptance.
Future funding streams and conditions of awards will be assessed by compliance levels, so researchers are strongly urged to publish in compliance.
The metadata of non-textual material, including the outputs of practice-based material, should be added. Where possible you should include any relevant files which can be made open.
Gold Access describes publication in peer reviewed journals, which requires payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC), and which permits immediate, free online access to the full content of an article.
Green Access describes the process of depositing (also known as self archiving), cost free, a copy of an article in either the accepted (Accepted Author Manuscript) or published format into an institutional or subject repository.
Diamond Access describes community-driven Open Access journals and other publications across the world that are free for readers and authors. The University of Westminster Press is an example of a diamond publisher.
There were an estimated 17.000–29.000 Diamond OA journals worldwide in 2021 publishing 9% of the total article publication volume and 45% of Open Access publishing. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) can be searched for journals that do not charge an APC.
If you are a member of academic staff or doctoral researcher, you should add details to your researcher profile in the Virtual Research Environment (VRE).
Visit your funder's website. The Sherpa-Juliet database provides a summary of current funders' policies, plus links to their Open Access policies. Details of UK Research Council and Wellcome Trust Open Access policies are available.
The standards of peer review and editorial submission for Open Access are exactly the same as those required of conventional subscription-based material. WestminsterResearch only includes either final author versions, or 'as published' versions of journal articles. This should allay any concerns that may arise over making pre-peer-reviewed journal papers available online.
WestminsterResearch is included in national and global registries including the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). WestminsterResearch publications also feed into University of Westminster authors’ publicly visible ‘Staff Profile’ web pages.
Research outputs you have produced in an academic capacity should be included in WestminsterResearch. You must comply with any restrictions on reuse agreed with your publisher when signing a contract for publication. A useful website to find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement is SHERPA/RoMEO. New publications should be added as soon as they are accepted for publication. Outputs can be defined as ‘in press/forthcoming’ or ‘online first’ and updated once publication occurs.
You may have heard that you are not allowed to make articles you have written freely available online in this way. However, the majority of publishers will allow the author to deposit the final peer-reviewed Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM), or post-print. Publishers usually describe these AAM’s as the final draft author manuscript, as accepted for publication, including modifications based on referees’ suggestions, before it has undergone copy-editing and proof correction.
RoMEO contains the policies of many publishers, some of whom may stipulate an embargo period following publication, indicating how much time must elapse before the paper is made freely available. If you have never assigned any of your rights under copyright or license to a third party, you are free to add this information to WestminsterResearch.
An APC is a fee paid to the publisher of a journal to make an article free at point of access. This is Gold Open Access. While open access principles promote free availability of research and scholarly output, research papers are not free to publish. The cost of publication is moved from the reader (via subscriptions and paywalls) to the creator (via the APC). In practice APCs are often paid by the employer, or funding body.
Yes. The University has a limited central fund to pay Article Processing charges (APCs). All research-active staff are entitled to apply. As these funds are limited, applications must be supported by your College. More details on how to apply, and which journals are eligible is available on the Article Processing Charges (APC) Application Fund page.
The career position of applicants is among the criteria used to decide on APC funding applications.
Payment of all APCs will be managed by the Repository & Open Access Manager.
Yes – the policy applies to students’ peer reviewed journal articles or conference publications resulting from research at least partially funded by RCUK.
You have to deposit the final author formatted version which has been accepted and peer reviewed, not earlier revisions.
Creative Commons is a non profit organisation that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Their free copyright licenses provide a simple and standardised way to give the public permission to share and use an author’s creative work on conditions set by the author.
More information on different types of Creative Commons licences and what they permit is available in the University LibGuide, Copyright for Researchers.
All CC-BY licences require acknowledgement of the author and copyright legislation still applies. Papers which are openly accessible make the risk of unattributed copying or paraphrasing less hazardous than most, being easier to identify and detect from source. The accessibility and metadata tagging function of open access will make it easier to recognise those committing intentional plagiarism and breaching intellectual property rights and/or copyright.
All doctoral researchers must deposit a copy of the final thesis (PhD, MPhil or PhD by Published Work) to WestminsterResearch, the University’s institutional repository before you graduate. Under exceptional circumstances, you may request an embargo, consider if any will apply and talk to supervisor. See the Research Degree Handbook for details
Further resources:
We accept that there is a risk of plagiarism, as with all academic content, but in making the content openly available, such plagiarism is far more easily detectable, than if material is restricted. Many HEI repositories, as well as EThOS, now make PhD theses openly available and the impact and readership has been vastly improved from the days where they sat in print on a library shelf.
Visit our Research data pages for advice on all aspects of research data planning, gathering and storage.
UKRI requires in-scope research articles to include a Data Access Statement, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. Further guidance is provided at Annex 1, of the UKRI Open Access policy.
On the research data webpages, you can also find guidance on writing data access statements and what to include, even when the data are not openly available, alongside some example data access statements.
The University of Westminster Press was established in 2015 and is a mission-driven, non-profit Open Access publisher of peer reviewed books, journals and policy briefs.
See more information on the University of Westminster Press.