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Library Services supports all research activity at Cardiff Met and facilitates open access (OA) to the University's research outputs via DSpace (our institutional repository) and works alongside the open access policy (OA policy) of the University.

​***NEW*** Library Services has signed up to a number of agreements with leading publishers that cover the costs that often come with publishing fully open access. You can find out more details about the current agreements in our dedicated page.

Making work OA helps ensure that work done by Cardiff Met researchers is accessible to anyone and can potentially lead to a wider audience for your work. It was also especially important for REF 2021 - any published journal article or conference proceedings (with ISSN) that was submitted to the REF needed to have been made available OA on DSpace within 3 months of acceptance. 

The core OA policy and process remains in place even after the University made its REF submission in March 2021.

You can submit your work easily via the DSpace Dropoff - we'll be in touch if we need any more information. 

****Can't get hold of the accepted manuscript? Need some further advice about the policy?****

Please do get in touch with us (dspace@cardiffmet.ac.uk) as we can help!

Open Access @ Cardiff Met

Open access publishing at Cardiff Met can be achieved via one of the following routes:

a) Publishing in an open access journal, free from Article Processing Charges (APCs)

b) Publishing in a subscription journal which permits authors to deposit a copy of the output in a local or subject repository, usually following an embargo period (otherwise known as the green route)

***The post-print is the version of the article after it has been peer-reviewed and revised into its final form by the author, often referred to as the author’s accepted manuscript or author's final peer-reviewed manuscript. This version does not include the publishers' logos, final formatting or typesetting.***

c) Publishing in a hybrid journal and paying an APC to allow immediate open access publication (otherwise known as the gold route)

Under option b), researchers should deposit a version of their research (usually the accepted manuscript/post-print) into DSpace no later than three months after the date of acceptance from a publisher. This helps to ensure all research from Cardiff Met will be available for anyone to access and just as vitally it will be compliant for REF exercises (even if not submitted).

It is expected that most researchers will follow the green route at Cardiff Met but in some circumstances, it may be necessary or desirable to follow the gold route. Library Services have a number of open access publishing agreements in place that will cover the cost for you.  

In other instances of APC based publishing, researchers can apply to their School MPT for funding to cover the cost of the APC incurred.

Contact researchlib@cardiffmet.ac.uk for more advice or help in making your research open access.

Open Access and the REF

An open access (OA) policy applied to all journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 in line with what was the OA policy of REF 2021.

The core of the policy was that journal articles and conference proceedings must be available in an OA form to be eligible for submission. Researchers uploaded the post-print/accepted manuscript version to DSpace as soon as it has been accepted for publication - and no later than three months after acceptance.

The core of this policy remains in place even after the University made its submission to REF in March 2021