Open Access Publishing

The purpose of scientific research is to produce new information for the society’s use. However, it can be hard for the general public to access much of the research, as scientific articles are often published in paid scientific journals. For example, only university staff and students can make full use of the content of paid scientific journals. In other words, a great deal of scientific information is behind a paywall, which makes it much more difficult for companies, other organisations and communities alike to utilise scientific information. However, culture is changing: For example, about 80% of all publications produced at the University of Eastern Finland are openly available, and for peer-reviewed publications the figure is already nearly 90%.

Open science and research are a way of promoting the visibility and impact of science in society. The objective of open science is to make research materials, methods and results accessible for all interested parties. Openness offers opportunities but also requires new type of expertise from the researchers to manage research information and research processes, along with readiness to open their research work and its results. 

Benefits of open science: 

  • improves the accessibility of research results and the transparency of research 
  • accelerates innovation, business and collaboration 
  • saves resources 
  • promotes equality 
  • enables the rise of new research questions 
  • helps develop critical thinking and scientific literacy in society 

Open access (OA) publications are free to access and use by anyone without needing to compensate for their use, or without needing log in to a university network, for instance.

There are three ways in which the articles of a scientific journal can be made available to readers:

  • the entire journal is made open access
  • individual articles of a paid journal are given open access
  • the publication has been self-archived, for example, in the university’s publication archive 

There can be different versions of the same publication online, such as:

  • Final version approved for a journal, for example, with the publisher’s layout (Version of record / Publisher’s PDF)
  • Peer-reviewed version approved by a publisher without the publisher’s layout (Final draft / Author accepted manuscript)
  • Manuscript yet to be peer-reviewed (Pre-print)

Being free to use does not mean free overall. The publishing and editing of journals require money, even if they are published online. In the open access (OA) model, publication costs are covered through an Article/Author Processing Charge (APC) paid by the author of the article. However, not all open access journals charge an APC. Readers do not have to pay anything to access and read open access articles.

Self-archiving in organisations 

It is possible to save articles that are behind paywalls into a content repository, from which they can be openly accessed with a possible delay compared to the original publishing.

UEF eRepository (eRepo) is the repository used by UEF. You can use it to search for self-archived versions of articles published by UEF researchers. The actual and paid versions of the articles have usually been published elsewhere. You can find a link to eRepo from UEF Primo, but individual articles must be retrieved separately from eRepo.

There is a principle in the Finnish science and publishing world that research funded by public funds should be openly accessible to everyone. See  OKM:n tiedote 13.6.2017 (announcement by the Ministry of Education and Culture, not available in English). If a publication is not originally published as open access, it should nevertheless be deposited in an institutional repository through self-archiving. At the University of Eastern Finland, the library takes care of self-archiving on behalf of researchers.

Researchers have an active role in peer-to-peer distribution 

In some cases, researchers may make their articles available on their personal websites or through academic platforms, such as Zenodo or ResearchGate. However, whether an article can be shared depends on the publisher’s policies and on which version of the article is being distributed.

If copyright restrictions prevent open sharing, a student, another researcher, or anyone else interested in the topic may request a copy of the article directly from the author.

Books and theses can also be published open access 

In addition to scientific articles, also scientific books can be published through the open access format.

Theses, and doctoral dissertations in particular, are often open access. As a student, you can actively contribute to open science by publishing your master’s thesis as an open access publication.

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