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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 of the University.

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 is also especially important for the upcoming REF in 2021 - any published journal article or conference proceedings (with ISSN) that will be submitted to the REF needs to have been made available OA on DSpace within 3 months of acceptance. This usually takes the form of making available the post-print/accepted manuscript (usually this is an MS Word document) - which is something your publisher should provide you or the lead author with during the publication process.

We may need to embargo the work on DSpace for a short time period due to publisher conditions which is admissible under the REF OA policy and ensures researchers can still publisher in the most suitable venue for their work. 

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

****​Missed the deadline? Can't get hold of the accepted manuscript?****

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

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

Under all circumstances, 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 2021 (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 to follow the gold route. In these instances, researchers will apply to their School MPT for funding to cover the cost of the APC incurred.

***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.***

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

Please refer to Cardiff Met's Policy on Open Access publishing of research for full details. The policy includes a workflow to help researchers select the appropriate route and an open access glossary of terms. 

Open Access and the REF

An open access (OA) policy applies to all journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 that will be submitted to the REF. Find out more details about the policy.

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