Open Access Publishing Agreements: FAQs

All corresponding authors affiliated with UCD can avail of UCD Library's Open Access Publishing agreements. The corresponding author is the person responsible for manuscript submission and all correspondence/communication during the publication process.

Please ensure you include your UCD address and UCD email address in the corresponding author details at the time of submission.

Some funding bodies/programmes (e.g. Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe) may still require you to archive your publication in a repository even if it is already published open access, so check your grant agreement to ensure you comply with any such requirements.

Otherwise, there is no need to also self-archive your work in a repository as your publication is already openly accessible, but you can still do so if you wish.

UCD Library does not currently have any funds to cover Article Processing Charges or other Open Access publishing fees outside of the agreements detailed on this guide. Some funding agencies may allow these as an eligible cost, or provide additional support to help researchers cover these costs. Check your funder's Open Access policy and your grant agreement for specific details.

An article processing charge (APC) is the charge that’s paid to the publisher so the article can be made freely accessible upon publication. This means that the cost has moved from ‘pay-to-read’ to ‘pay-to-publish’.
It’s really for benefit of the reader, who then doesn’t pay to access articles. Unfortunately, that can sometimes be at the cost of the author. The APC is the cost that’s now addressed to the author who wishes to publish open access.

An APC might also be referred to as an ‘article processing fee’, ‘Open Access fee’, and ‘Open Access charge’, and, generally, it covers the cost of the article publication. This includes running peer-review systems, copyediting, typesetting, and hosting the article.

A full list of all the journals included in the IReL agreements can be found here.

If you are unable to publish your article Open Access under one of the Library's OA publishing agreements you can use one of the alternative routes to OA:

Self-archive the author's accepted manuscript (AAM) of your article in an OA repository such as Research Repository UCD or arXiv etc. The publisher may apply an embargo period in some cases. Ensure you include any Rights Retention Statement required by your funder (e.g. SFI, Horizon Europe) when submitting your manuscript to the publisher as this will allow you to retain the right to share the AAM version of your article with an open licence. 

Publish in an OA journal where no Article Processing Charges (APCs) are payable by authors. The DOAJ lists over 10,000 reputable OA journals without APCs. Some funding agencies also have their own OA publishing platforms where grantees can publish at no cost. e.g. HRB Open Research and Open Research Europe.

Open Access Journals with author charges. In some journals, Article Processing Charges are payable by authors to cover OA publishing costs. Some funders allow APCs as an eligible cost - check the terms and conditions of your grant agreement and your funder's OA policy for details.

For more information on alternative options see our Open Access help guide.

Creative Commons (CC) licences do not replace copyright. By adopting CC licences authors allow others to use their published work more flexibly. We recommend that you first check if your funding body requires or prefers a specific licence.

The most common CC licences are:

CC BY: This licence lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licences offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

CC BY-NC: This licence lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

CC BY-NC-ND: This licence is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Source: https://creativecommons.org/licenses

For more information on the full range of CC licensing options, and advice on choosing the right licence for your research, see the CC licence choosing tool.