Definitions

Article Processing Charge (APC)

Fees levied by a journal for publishing an article open access. They are sometimes charged by open access journals and may be their only source of income. Hybrid journals always charge APCs for an article to be available open access, this is an additional income source to subscriptions.

APCs may be paid by an author, their institution, or a funding body. These charges may be waived if an institutional open access publishing agreement is active.

Book Processing Charge (BPC) / Chapter Processing Charge (CPC)

Fees levied by a book publisher for publishing a book or individual book chapter open access. Most major academic book publishers will publish open access for a BPC or CPC. Some open access book publishers do not levy BPCs or CPCs, instead being supported by institutions, organisations, or grants. BPCs, and CPCs may be paid by an author, their institution, or a funding body.

Creative Commons licences

Open licences that have become best practice in open access publishing. They are built using a combination of elements: BY (Attribution), SA (Share-Alike), NC (Non-Commercial), and ND (No Derivatives). All licences are detailed on the Creative Commons website.

The most open of the licences is the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows authors to retain their copyright while granting others permission to distribute, use, adapt, remix, and build upon the material, so long as attribution is given to the creator. This is the preferred, and sometimes required, licence of the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), as well as many international research funders.

The most restrictive is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence does not allow for any commercial uses or the creation and sharing of any adaptations or derivative versions. It greatly restricts how others can use the work and, when adopted as part of an exclusive licence to publish with a publisher, can result in a significant loss of author rights.

Elements

The University of Melbourne’s internal research outputs management system. The Elements platform is used for the collection and reporting of metadata on the University’s research outputs. Publications details in researchers’ Find an Expert profiles are drawn from their Elements profile.

Depositing Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) in Elements is one pathway to making research outputs open access in Minerva Access, our institutional repository.

Embargo

In the context of open access publishing and sharing, embargoes are a restriction imposed by publishers on the public release of an output. Most scholarly publishers will allow the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) of a journal article or book chapter to be made open access in a repository after an embargo of between 12 and 36 months.

Staff at our institutional repository, Minerva Access, will determine and manage embargoes before making any version of a research output publicly available.

Gold open access

Definitions vary, but “gold” open access typically refers to publishing with fully open access journals or publishers. The research output is made freely available to the public immediately upon publication, usually under a Creative Commons licence.

Note that some publishers use the term “gold” to refer to paid open access in subscription journals. Today, this is more commonly referred to as “hybrid” open access.

Green open access

“Green” open access is when a paywalled research output is made freely available to the public in a repository. At the University of Melbourne, we tend to refer to this as “repository open access,” and we maintain an institutional repository, Minerva Access, to facilitate green open access to our research outputs.

Most academic publishers allow the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) of a journal article, conference paper, or book chapter to be made available in a repository after an embargo period (usually 12-36 months). A rights retention approach can be adopted to allow immediate green open access.

General repository

Multi-disciplinary research repositories that can be used to share Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) or preprints. Examples include Zenodo, SSRN, and Figshare. Many, but not all, are non-commercial.

A comprehensive list of reputable repositories can be found in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

Hybrid journals and publishers

A hybrid journal charges a fee (an Article Processing Charge, or APC) to publish a journal article open access in an otherwise subscription journal. The journal is hybrid because it contains both open access and paywalled content. The APCs levied by hybrid journals are, on average, higher than those levied by open access journals.

Similarly, hybrid book publishers levy a Book Processing Charge (BPC) or Chapter Processing Charge (CPC) to make the book or one or more chapters open access, when they would otherwise be paywalled.

Institutional open access publishing agreements

A contract entered into by an institution and a publisher that allows affiliated authors (usually affiliated corresponding authors only) to publish open access without facing Article Processing Charges (APCs), Book Processing Charges (BPCs), or Chapter Processing Charges (CPCs).

The most common kind of institutional open access publishing agreement today is the Read and Publish agreement with hybrid publishers. However, agreements with fully open access publishers can also be negotiated.

The University of Melbourne's current open access publishing agreements are detailed on the Open Access Publishing page.

Institutional repository

Repositories hosted by institutions to collect the research outputs of that institution. They often collect a broad range of digital items including articles, papers, books, book chapters, reports, data, and creative outputs.

The University of Melbourne has two institutional repositories: Minerva Access for research outputs, and Melbourne Figshare for research data, reports, supplementary research materials, and non-traditional research outputs (NTROs). You can find out more about Minerva Access and Melbourne Figshare on our Repository Open Access page .

Metadata

Metadata is information that describes an item or asset – that is, data – such as a research output or research dataset. This metadata may be compiled into a publications management platform such as Elements, or a repository such as Minerva Access.

The metadata of a journal article, for example, will usually include information such as: the author(s) and their affiliations, article title, date of publication, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, volume, issue, page range, DOI, licence and access rights, and funder grant ID.

Minerva Access

The University of Melbourne’s institutional repository for research publications, including journal articles, book chapters, and theses. Through Minerva Access, University of Melbourne researchers can make their research outputs open access.

University staff can deposit their research outputs in Minerva Access by uploading files in Elements, completing a ServiceNow form, or emailing the Research Outputs team. Find out more on the Research Gateway (internal access only).

Non-Traditional Research Output (NTRO)

A broad term encompassing research outputs that do not take the form of typical peer-reviewed scholarly publications (journal articles, books and book chapters, conference publications).

Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) include visual artworks, creative writing, films, performances, recordings, music composition, building and design projects, curated exhibitions, and portfolios. They may also be referred to as Artistic and Practice Based Research Outputs (APROs).

To be considered a research output for reporting purposes, an NTRO must meet the definition of research established in the Australian Research Council's 2018-19 ERA report:

Research is defined as the creation of new knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way so as to generate new concepts, methodologies, inventions and understandings. This could include synthesis and analysis of previous research to the extent that it is new and creative.

University of Melbourne researchers can find out more about reporting their NTROs on our Research Gateway: Add Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) to Find an Expert.

Open access

Open access refers to the availability of research outputs via the internet, such that any user can find, freely access, read, and download the output without charge. Best practice in open access is to use open licences, such as Creative Commons licences, that permit users to copy, distribute, print, search, link, crawl, mine, and otherwise use and reuse the research output, as long as proper attribution is provided. Find out more on our What Is Open Access? page.

Open access journals and publishers

Journals or publishers that release all their content open access. Research outputs are made freely available online such that anyone can find, access, download, read, use, and share the output. Sharing and reuse is facilitated through open licences, such as Creative Commons licences, and always subject to proper attribution.

A comprehensive list of open access journals is available through the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which is quality controlled and clearly displays any Article Processing Charges (APCs) levied by journals. Almost 70% of the journals listed in DOAJ do not levy APCs, instead being supported by institutions, organisations, associations, or grants.

Paywall

A barrier to accessing content online, which can only be overcome by having a subscription (either institutional or individual) or paying a one-off access fee.

Paywalled content is sometimes referred to as closed or closed access, as opposed to open or open access.

Plan S

Plan S is an international initiative to require grant funded research articles to be fully and immediately open access upon publication. There are three compliant pathways:

1. Publishing in a fully open access journal or open access platform.
2. Immediate repository open access (green open access) under a CC BY licence. The rights retention strategy has been designed to support this pathway.
3. Publishing in a journal that is under a transformative agreement, and is therefore moving from hybrid publishing to fully open access publishing.

Plan S was initiated in 2018 by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding organisations that includes the World Health Organization, the European Commission, the NHMRC (from 2022), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and various European funding agencies.

Find out more on our Funder open access policies page and on the cOAlition S website.

Preprint

A version of an article or paper that is shared openly prior to formal peer review or publication. Preprints are typically shared on preprint servers, such as arXiv.org, bioRxiv, OSF Preprints, SSRN, or Zenodo.

Find out more on our Preprints page.

Read and Publish (R&P) agreement

Contracts entered into by institutions and publishers wherein institutions pay for both read access to specified subscription journals and for affiliated academics to publish open access in those journals. The publishing component may be uncapped (unlimited) or capped (limited) and may cover only a select titles list from the publisher. In many cases, the agreements only cover select hybrid journals, with APCs still being levied for open access journals. These agreements are sometimes called transformative agreements when they aim to transform the publisher’s underlying business model to make their journals fully open access.

Most of the R&P agreements in place at the University of Melbourne were negotiated by the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and have also been adopted by other Australian universities. All of the University’s current R&P agreements are detailed on our Open Access Publishing page.

Repository

An online digital archive, usually open to the public, that stores and provides access to research outputs. Common types of repositories include: institutional repositories, general repositories, and subject repositories.

Research output

A work produced during a research project. Research outputs are diverse in nature and range from journal articles, conference papers, books, and book chapters, to research data, code, software, protocols, and artistic and creative works.

Rights retention

Rights retention involves authors pre-emptively asserting copyright and sharing rights over Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) at the time of initial submission to a publisher, usually through the application of a CC BY licence to the AAM. Upon article publication, the AAM is deposited in a repository for immediate open access.

In alignment with the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy, the 2022 NHMRC Open Access Policy requires authors submitting to subscription journals to include a rights retention statement in their submitted manuscript. Upon article publication, authors are expected to make their AAM open access under a CC BY licence in a repository. This strategy is also strongly encouraged by the University's Principles for Open Access to Research Outputs at Melbourne.

For more information on author rights retention, see our What is rights retention? page. Further guidance on the NHMRC's rights retention requirements can be found on our Funder open access policies page and in the NHMRC’s Open access and retention of ownership rights document.

Subject repository

Discipline-specific research repositories that can be used to share AAMs or preprints.

Examples include PubMed Central, ERIC from the Institute of Education Sciences, Humanities Commons, and RePEc EconPapers for economics research, as well as preprint servers such as arXiv.org, bioRxiv, and medRxiv.

Subject repositories are usually non-commercial and supported by institutions, organisations, or grants. A comprehensive list of reputable subject repositories can be found in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

Submitted manuscript

The submitted manuscript is the version of a research output originally submitted to a venue, such as a journal or book publisher. This version typically undergoes editorial review and may subsequently be sent on for peer review.

In the past, submitted manuscripts were sometimes called preprints, although this term now has a different meaning: early versions of article or papers shared prior to peer review on preprint servers.

Find out more about article versions on the Minerva Access website.

Subscribe to Open (S2O)

A publishing model wherein a journal or publisher makes the coming year’s content open access at no cost to authors, if their annual subscription target is reached.

Although more common with journals and journal publishers, the model has also been adopted by some book publishers, as in the case of MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) program. Participating institutions receive access to the publisher’s backlist/archives and, if revenue targets are met, the coming year’s monographs and edited volumes are published open access at no cost to authors.

Some of the S2O initiatives currently being supported by the University of Melbourne are described on our Open Access Publishing page

Venue

The venue in which a research output is published is the journal, conference proceedings, book series or imprint, or website that publishes the final work. Venues have different scopes in what they publish – for example, research articles, conference papers, or monographs – and typically have different audiences.

Version of Record (VoR)

The final published version of a research output – usually the publisher’s final PDF.

Unless the work is published open access under a Creative Commons licence, this version cannot generally be shared or made open access in a repository.

Find out more about article versions on the Minerva Access website.