Help Make Your Research Articles Freely Available

UC authors can make their scholarly articles open access (OA) by:

Posting a copy of the work in an OA repository (no cost), or
Publishing OA on the publisher’s website (fees in some circumstances; support may be available)

(View a visual guide to navigating these routes to OA by downloading a PDF guide.)

Post in an OA repository

University of California (UC) authors can deposit their work in an OA repository, like eScholarship. Such a deposit is possible whether work is published in a subscription-based journal or OA at the publisher’s website. The version posted to the repository will be the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) version, reflecting changes from peer review but not including the publisher’s formatting and branding. The AAM is the final, peer-reviewed version of an article before formatting by the publisher.

Benefits

No fees for authors or readers.
Work is immediately available OA upon deposit.
Fulfills funder and institutional requirements (although different funders and institutions may use different repositories).

Requirements

UC employees: UC OA policies require employees to deposit their scholarly research articles in eScholarship, UC’s OA repository and publishing platform. These policies give the university a nonexclusive license to host the work deposited, which remains valid regardless of agreements between authors and publishers. This means that UC authors can deposit their published articles immediately at no cost, even if the publisher’s default terms would require a delay. Learn more on the UC OA Policies FAQ page.

Grant recipients: Many grant funders require grant recipients to deposit work in an OA repository. Recipients of NIH (National Institutes of Health) grants, for instance, must make their articles available in PubMed Central. Read more about funder OA policies on the Other OA Policies & Legislation page.

Publish OA on the Publisher’s Website

Many journals either are fully OA or are subscription journals that allow authors to choose OA for specific articles. When an article is OA, the publisher’s final formatted version, known as the Version of Record (VOR), is freely available on the publisher’s website. Many journals, whether they are OA or subscription-based, charge a publication fee to make an article OA. This publication fee is known as the ‘Article Processing Charge’ or ‘APC’. Find thousands of OA journals (both with an APC and APC-free) listed in the Directory of OA Journals (DOAJ). You can also specifically search DOAJ for APC-free journals.

Publication fees

To handle potential publication fees, first check if the UC Libraries have a publishing agreement with your publisher or if there are other funds available to cover these costs.

Find publishing agreements

UC Libraries have many agreements with publishers that reduce the fees authors have to pay to make their journal articles open access. These publishing agreements often cover the full cost or provide a discount on the fees. For more information about UC’s support for these fees, visit our page on OA Publishing Agreements and Discounts.

Identify funds from other sources

If a UC publishing agreement doesn’t fully cover an OA publication fee (see above), funds from other sources may be used. Some UC authors can get discounts, and funds may also be available from their grants, academic department, or campus library.

Creative Commons Licenses

Both routes to OA described above may involve applying a Creative Commons (CC) license to the work. Learn about choosing a CC license for your article on the CC Licenses page.