Using Open Access Repositories

Depositing a copy of your research outputs in an open access repository is one way of fulfilling open access mandates and making your research more visible. When a repository supports open access, it means that the research materials stored in it such as articles, datasets, or other scholarly outputs are freely available to the public without financial, legal, or technical barriers. This allows anyone to access, reach, download, and often reuse the content, usually under specific licensing terms (for example, Creative Commons license). Repositories are split often into two types: publication repositories and data repositories.

It is possible that there may be many repositories that would be appropriate for you deposit your research into. These include:

• The Atrium: This is the University of Guelph’s Institutional Repository, and contains publications, theses and dissertations, grey literature and more that was produced at the university.
• The University of Guelph Research Data Repositories: These are the repositories for research data produced at the University of Guelph. They include both open access and restricted access datasets.
• Pre-print repositories: These include arXiv, and bioRxiv.
• Subject-specific repositories, such as CORE for the Humanities.

You can also search for OA repositories using a federated search, such as OpenDOAR, the Directory of Open Access Preprint Repositories, or re3data.org.

The Library provides guides on How to Use the Atrium and How to Use the Data Repositories. Other repositories will have their own user guides on their websites.

Before depositing research, you will also need to confirm that you are adhering to copyright law and that you are depositing the appropriate version of your article. Data deposits may also require deposit of data management plans.

Copyright and Licences

Copyright and licensing underpin how you share your research. Before depositing a copy of your research in an OA repository, you will need to ensure that you are not infringing copyright. This guide is not legal advice but is intended to help you understand copyright considerations when publishing and depositing in repositories.

Thinking About Copyright When Publishing

When you publish an article, you will be asked to sign an author agreement. In the agreement you will usually be asked to do one of three things:

1. Assign copyright to the publisher. This means that you are no longer the copyright holder. Unless there are permissions granted to you as the creator listed elsewhere (i.e. in the author agreement or in an open access policy on the publisher website), you will likely have to ask the publisher’s permission to include your work in a repository.
2. Grant the publisher an exclusive license. You remain the copyright holder, but the publisher has the exclusive right to do the actions included in the agreement. Again, unless there are permissions elsewhere (i.e. in the author agreement or in an open access policy on the publisher website), you will likely have to ask the publisher’s permission to include your work in a repository.
3. Grant the publisher a non-exclusive license. You remain the copyright holder, and you grant the publisher to do the actions in the contract, but you can also exercise those rights yourself and grant them to others.

If you are depositing in a repository before publication, read the license terms for the repository and for any journals you may want to submit to. This ensures that you will not be contravening journal policy by having made a copy already available.

Generally, data are not protected by copyright because they are not original, creative expressions. However, certain elements of a dataset such as photographs or complex visualizations maybe copyright-protected. If you are unsure, you can review the library guide on copyright, or contact the library for support.

Choosing a License

Often when depositing into a repository you will be asked whether you want to apply a license, such as a creative commons license, so that users know what they can do with your work.

The library provides resources about Copyright and Creative Commons licenses, such as:

1. Our webpage on Copyright for Authors
2. A quick video about Creative Commons licenses.

You can also contact the library for support.

Understanding Publisher Policies and Article Versions

It is common for publishers to have different policies for different versions of an article, which can make it confusing to know whether you are able to submit your article to an OA repository.

To check publisher policies:

1. Check the journal or publisher’s website for information about an “Open Access Policy”. There is not always consistent language across publishers.
2. Check the journal policy in the Open Policy Finder (formerly known as Sherpa Romeo).
3. Input your DOI into the University of Guelph’s ShareYourPaper tool. This tool assesses the publisher policies for you, and can allow you to have one-click deposit into the Atrium if you wish. We have instructions for using ShareYourPaper to deposit into the Atrium.

There is also not consistent language about article versions between publishers, but in general they are:

• Preprint: the version of the article as originally submitted to the journal.
• Accepted Manuscript: the version of the article accepted for publication including the changes made as a result of the peer review process. Sometimes called "post-print" or "final accepted version".
• Version of Record: what was published by the journal, including all copyediting, logos, formatting and typesetting. This would also include any post publication corrections. Sometimes called the "final version” or "publisher's version".

If you are unsure, you can contact the library for support.