Open Access

Open Access Explained

Open Access

How do I comply with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications?

To find out, use the Open Access Interactive Tool

Customizer

Questions? Email scom@mcmaster.ca

Download and Customize for your Institution

Download the Open Access Interactive Tool and promotional video package

Creative Commons License
Open Access Interactive Tool, Outcome Documents, and Promotional Materials by McMaster University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Open Access Explained

As of May 1st, 2015, open access is mandated by the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. Open access refers to scholarly research that is made freely available on the internet. In a scholarly environment, open access often focuses on journal articles.

 

Open access is a growing international movement that continues to gain momentum worldwide. Based on the principle that all research should be freely accessible online after publication, open access removes barriers that once restricted public access to scholarly research and knowledge.

The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications has required all researchers funded by NSERC, SSHRC, or CIHR from May 1, 2015 to make their peer-reviewed journal articles freely available online within 12 months of publication.

The compliance requirements for health researchers have not changed, but CIHR-funded researchers must now refer to the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications

Several funding agencies already mandate open access. Visit Sherpa Juliet, a database of research funders' open access policies, to learn more.

McMaster University Senate recently passed a motion to sign the Berlin Declaration encouraging McMaster researchers to make their work open access.

Open access journals make research freely available online to anyone with access to the internet.

It can provide immediate, public access to research funded by taxpayers.

Open access means greater dissemination of knowledge, a larger research impact, and potential for higher citation rates. Evidence for increased citations with open access can be found at the Open Access Citation Advantage Service website.

Altmetric tools such as ORCID, are available to help track your research impact with accuracy.

  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): provides access to full text, quality controlled, scholarly open access journals in a variety of disciplines.

  • MacSphere: An online institutional repository of McMaster’s open access scholarly output.

  • OpenDOAR: A global directory of open access institutional or subject-based repositories

Yes. Many open access journals are peer-reviewed. Most self-archived articles have also been peer-reviewed.

Open access is free to users, but all publishing has a cost. A number of business models support open access publishing. Some open access journals charge a publishing fee to offset these costs.

Some open access journals charge authors a publishing fee. Many non-open access journals also make page or author charges in addition to subscription charges to readers. The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy identifies the cost of publishing as an eligible expense under the Use of Grant Funds

Use Sherpa Juliet to find more info about research funders’ open access policies

McMaster University does not offer grants for Author Processing Charges (APC). However, researchers at McMaster are currently eligible for some open access publishing discounts as a benefit of subscriptions paid for by the McMaster University Libraries. To learn more about the discounts, please see the "Library Support for Open Access" tab on the Open Access web page.

Funding Sources - Some granting agencies allow author costs as an eligible expense. Grant opportunities and their related policies can be accessed through the following websites:

  • ROADS (Research Office for Administration, Development and Support)

  • HRS (Health Research Services)

Online Repositories Explained

Online Repositories Explained

As of May 1st, 2015, open access is mandated by the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. Open access refers to scholarly research that is made freely available on the internet. In a scholarly environment, open access often focuses on journal articles.

The purpose of an IR is to bring together all of a University's research under one umbrella, with an aim to preserve and provide access to that research. The research and scholarly output included in MacSphere has been selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centres on campus.

  • Provides persistent URLs
  • Provides long-term preservation of materials
  • Contents are indexed in search engines such as Google and Google Scholar
  • Exposes literature to a worldwide audience which may transfer to higher impact or citation rates for authors.
  • Most repositories comply with the Open Archives Initiatives (OAI) standards. These standards used for digital content enhance the searchability and the visibility of materials

Yes. McMaster’s repository is called MacSphere.

Login to MacSphere with your MAC ID and password, and submit your article to the collection that corresponds to your department. Before doing so, ensure that you have the proper permissions, as explained below.

Questions? Email scom@mcmaster.ca

Yes, however, before you submit your article to MacSphere, ensure that you have the copyright permissions to do so. Consult Sherpa Romeo, a database of publishers’ policies regarding the self-archiving of journal articles on the web or online repositories. You may have the right to include some but not all versions of your article (e.g. pre-print, post-print, or published version). Also, confirm your copyright permissions with your publisher.

Yes, you may deposit your manuscript into an institutional or research repository if one exists at the author’s home institution. In McMaster’s case, the repository is MacSphere. You may also deposit your manuscript into a subject repository if one exists in your discipline. To find out, search OpenDOAR

MacSphere

MacSphere

Related Links

Getting Started with MacSphere

Copyright & Open Access

Copyright & Open Access

What are the Publishers Copyright & Self Archiving Policies?

Sherpa Romeo - a database of publishers’ copyright and open access archiving policies from around the world

Wish to retain more control over copyright? Consider the SPARC Canadian Author Addendum:

  • Allows authors to retain select rights such as reproduction, reuse, and public presentation of their published articles for non-commercial purposes

  • Helps Canadian researchers comply with granting council public access policies, such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Policy on Access to Research Outputs

  • Reflects Canadian copyright law

  • Adapted from the SPARC Author Addendum

Alternatively use the wording in the template below (provided by the Government of Canada):

[Journal] acknowledges that the researcher will be entitled to archive an electronic copy of the final, peer-reviewed manuscript for inclusion in (name of repository). Manuscripts archived with (name of repository) may be made freely available to the public, via the internet, within twelve months of the official date of final publication in the journal.

More information about authors’ rights:

Open Access Resources

Open Access Resources

Open Access Overview (Peter Suber)

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, 22 October 2003

Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI)

Open Access Curricula for Researchers & Library Schools (UNESCO)

Open Access Directory

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications

UNESCO Recommendation on OER

 

Library Support for Open Access

Library Support for Open Access

McMaster University Libraries Investment in Open Access

McMaster University researchers are entitled to discounts on Article Processing Charges (APCs) in the following journals or journal packages as a result of memberships negotiated and paid for by the Library. Identify yourself as affiliated with McMaster and the CRKN Consortium to receive the discounts. More details about the CRKN agreements is available directly from CRKN's site.

 

APC Waivers:  Publish your Article Open Access

  • Cambridge University Press - Publish an unlimited number of articles as open access in Cambridge hybrid and gold journals at no charge. Corresponding authors must identify their McMaster affiliation.
     
  • Canadian Science Publishing - As of January 2023, corresponding authors from McMaster can publish APC-free in the following five journals:  Biochemistry and Cell Biology; Canadian Journal of Physics; Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology; Genome; and Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering.  McMaster authors are also eligible for a 25% discount for publication in all CSP Hybrid journals.  Authors must identify their McMaster affiliation at the point of article submission.
     
  • IGI-Global - Six APC waivers per year are available to McMaster faculty whose works are accepted in an IGI Global publication. Faculty members will be notified that a waiver is available to them if they would like to publish their article as Open Access. Articles can be opened retroactively as well.
     
  • Institute of Physics (IOP) - McMaster authors will be able to publish an unlimited number of their articles as open access in most IOP hybrid and gold journals for the duration of the CRKN agreement (2022-2024). Authors will be automatically recognized by affiliation.
     
  • Microbiology Society Journals - McMaster's agreement covers all six of the Society's peer-reviewed monthly journals. Any article published in the journals where the corresponding author is affiliated with McMaster will be Open Access by default. There is no limit on the number of articles authors can publish during the term of the agreement (2022-2024).
     
  • PLOS, including PLOS ONE - For the two-year period, February 1 2023-January 31 2025, McMaster authors will be able to publish an unlimited number of articles in the full PLOS suite of journals. For more on the submission process, check the PLOS FAQ for Authors or watch the video. Authors should use their @mcmaster.ca email when submitting.
     
  • SAGE Journals - For the term of this CRKN agreement (2021-2023), McMaster authors can publish open access in over 900 SAGE Choice journals with no APC. A small number of titles are excluded. The fee waiver is applied automatically when authors identify their McMaster affiliation during the submission process. In addition, the agreement includes a 40% discount on the APCs on SAGE's gold open access journals.
     
  • Wiley Hybrid Journals - As of January 15, 2023, McMaster corresponding authors are eligible for APC-free publication in Wiley's hybrid journals. Wiley's fully gold open access journals are not covered by this agreement and authors will continue to be charged full fees.  Information on the submission process and journals covered is available from Wiley's information page for Canadian institutions.

 

Claim APC Discounts:

  • American Chemical Society (ACS) - Receive a $250 USD flat discount upon submission of a manuscript. Authors must identify their McMaster affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.
  • Elsevier Science Direct Open Access - For the term of 2021- 2023, authors affiliated with McMaster University will be granted a 20% discount on Elsevier’s APCs for both hybrid and gold OA journals. Cell Press, Lancet, and some other society-owned journals will be excluded. See a complete List of Titles Excluded from APC discount.
  • MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) - Starting in March 2021, McMaster authors may receive a 10% discount on APCs when they publish their articles with MDPI.
  • Royal Society of Chemistry - McMaster authors receive a 15% discount for publication in RSC hybrid journals. Authors must specify their affiliation when submitting.
  • Taylor & Francis -  Receive a 25% discount in Taylor & Francis Open Select journals. Authors must choose the open access publishing option. When the APC is generated, authors can select McMaster University 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.

 

The Library provides funding to the following organizations to help support the open dissemination of content:

 

Our Library memberships support platforms, infrastructure, and open access initiatives more broadly.

 

For more information on journal publishing and library support, contact scom@mcmaster.ca

Open Access Week

Open Access Week

International Open Access Week - an annual event launched in 2008 by SPARC and partners in the student community

Open Access Week, McMaster University Libraries, October 25-31, 2021

Open Access Week, McMaster University Libraries, October 19-25, 2020 

Open Access Week, McMaster University Libraries, October 21-27, 2019

Open Access Week, McMaster University Libraries, October 22-28, 2018

Open Access Week, McMaster University Libraries, October 23-27, 2017

Open Education Week

Open Education Week

Open Education Week - an annual event launched in 2012 by Open Education Global

Open Education Week, McMaster University Libraries, March 7-11, 2022

Open Education Week, McMaster University Libraries, March 1-5, 2021

Open Education Week, McMaster University Libraries, March 2-6, 2020                        

Open Education Week, McMaster University Libraries, March 4-8, 2019

Open Education Week, McMaster University Libraries, March 5-9, 2018

Open Access Publishing

Open Access Publishing

McMaster Library supports Open Access Publishing (OA) and is happy to assist faculty and students that are interested in making their work freely available.

  • You can adhere to the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications in one of two ways:
    • "Submit your manuscript to a journal that offers immediate open access or offers open access to the paper on its website within 12 months of publication."
    • "Submit your manuscript to a journal that does not offer open access, but will permit you to archive the peer-reviewed manuscript in a central or institutional repository within 12 months of publication."
  • Final peer-reviewed version of your work will be openly available on the publisher's website and discoverable wherever the publisher has indexed it leading to:
    • increased interaction resulting in increased number of views and citations
    • improved education and public access
  1.  Use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to browse journals connected to your research interests.
  2. Search for Open Access Journals using search engines and evaluate by considering:
    • are articles from this journal being cited in other reputable journals?
    • are reputable authors being published in this journal?

The development of Open Access Publishing has seen the rise of predatory journals that seek to exploit the OA model. The primary goal of these journals is to make a profit by engaging in questionable editorial and publishing practices.

A Predatory Journal may:

  • appear as unsolicited spam from a non academic email account and include a lot of spelling and grammatical errors
  • not provide the name of their editors or editorial board
  • not provide an address or give a fake address
  • promise rapid publication (i.e. little or no peer review)
  • make false claims (i.e. regarding impact factor and indexing)
  • advertise special offers (i.e. reduced fees or limited time discounts)

Although outdated, the archived Beall's List of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers is one resource for determining whether a publication is predatory.

Resources for Assessing Journals: