This document discusses and compares green open access (self-archiving published works in repositories) and gold open access (publishing in open access journals that are freely available online). It provides definitions of these terms from various organizations. It also outlines recent open access policies from funding bodies and governments in the UK, Europe, US, and Australia that generally support both green and gold open access. Empirical evidence is presented that open access articles tend to receive more downloads and citations than articles hidden behind paywalls. Instructions are given for authors to self-archive works in La Trobe University's research repository to provide green open access.

1. Green v Gold Open access publishing
Simon Huggard
Digital Infrastructure Manager
International Open Access Week
Library Research Forum
25 October 2013
latrobe.edu.au
CRICOS Provider 00115M

2. Definitions – Green open access
sherpa.ac.uk/romeoinfo.html
La Trobe University
2
2

3. Definitions – Gold open access – Paid Open Access
sherpa.ac.uk/romeoinfo.html
• Some publishers are now offering … enhanced visibility
of the final article through … free-to-view archiving
• Typically involves a substantial additional fee
• In some cases, the option simply consists of making the
published version freely available from the publisher's
own server, without any other rights or permissions
being granted. In others, material is still placed under
an embargo
• Neither of these facilities can be counted as real "open
access"
La Trobe University
3
3

4. Publisher definitions – Wiley1
• Self-archiving (Green Open Access): Option of an author selfarchiving the Manuscript version after a 12 month embargo
period from publication in a repository
• Pay to publish (Hybrid Open Access): Wiley’s “pay to publish”
(OnlineOpen option) - means that an article from a
subscription journal becomes Open Access by a payment of
a publication fee (currently $3000 per article)
• Wiley’s Open Access Journals (Gold Open Access): These incur
Article Processing Charges for the article to be published.
Then freely available online via the Open Access journal site
(along with ALL articles in that journal)
olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-406074.html (viewed 17 Oct 2013)
La Trobe University
4
4

5. aoasg.org.au/resources/faq-about-open-access/
•
What is Green Open Access? Researchers can deposit a
version of their published work into a subject-based repository
or an institutional repository. Every university in Australia has a
repository for this purpose.
•
What is Gold Open Access? Alternatively researchers can
publish in an open access journal, where the publisher of a
scholarly journal provides free online access. Business models
for this form of OA vary. In some cases, the publisher charges
the author’s institution or funding body an article processing
charge (APC). All Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals use
this model.
La Trobe University
5
5

6. Finch report - UK
June 2012, Commissioned by UK Govt (chaired Dame Janet Finch)
• a clear policy direction should be set towards support for publication in open
access or hybrid journals, funded by APCs [article processing charges] … as
the main vehicle for the publication of research
• proposes spending £60 million a year to make all publicly-funded research
free to access
10 Sept 2013 - UK Business, Innovation and Skills Committee:
• Gold open access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the
transition to a fully open access world is a mistake
• reconsider preference for Gold Open Access during the five year transition
period, give due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green Open
Access and repositories have to play as the UK moves towards full OA
• reinstate and strengthen the immediate deposit mandate in its original policy
and improve the monitoring and enforcement of mandated deposit
La Trobe University
6
6

7. SCONUL * Sept 2013 Briefing on mandatory OA policies
• Most UK institutions working on raising awareness of
OA requirements
• Most have published OA policies
• Of 8 case studies (SCONEL 2013), only 1 pref. Green OA
• Many actively promoting the green route in line with
RCUK policy.
• Library or IT hold the Gold OA funds
• Funds allocated on a first come-first served basis
•
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) represents all university libraries in the UK
and Ireland. sconul.ac.uk/page/briefing-on-mandatory-openaccesspolicies
•
La Trobe University
7
7

8. Europe & US
• European Commission: Horizon 2020 research funding programmes: both
the Green and Gold models are considered valid approaches to achieve open
access
• Supports the shift of payment from subscribers to authors (Gold Open
Access).
• Respects the rights of publishers to place embargoes on self-archiving in
repositories
• US Government: Feb 2013 memorandum from the U.S. Government's Office
of Science and Technology Policy requiring public access to federally funded
data.
• Federal agencies with more than $100M in R&D expenditures [must] develop
plans to make … federally funded research freely available to the public
within one year of publication.
(2013) Fuchs, C and Sandoval , M. The Diamond Model of Open Access Publishing: Why Policy Makers, Scholars, Universities, Libraries,
Labour Unions and the Publishing World Need to Take Non-Commercial, Non-Profit Open Access Serious tripleC 13(2): 428-443
La Trobe University
8
8

9. Australia - Recent Mandates
• NHMRC revised policy on dissemination of research findings
NHMRC requires that any publications arising from an NHMRC
supported research project must be deposited into an open
access institutional repository within a twelve month period
from the date of publication. [2012]
•
nhmrc.gov.au/grants/policy/dissemination-research-findings
• ARC open access policy
• The overarching aim of ARC’s Policy is to ensure that findings of
publicly funded research are made available to the wider public
as soon as possible. Both the research community and public
gain from knowledge derived from ARC funded research, and
both wish to derive maximum benefit from these outputs [2013]
arc.gov.au/applicants/open_access.htm
La Trobe University
9

10. Australia
Warwick Anderson, CEO, NHMRC – 18 Sep 2013:
• National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) mandate that
all publications from research we’ve funded be openly accessible. We
and … the Australian Research Council, are flexible on how it’s done,
as long as the paper is made available.
• Researchers may opt for Green self archiving … or Gold
• The Open Access movement is having a significant impact on how we
measure the impact of scientific research
• The NHMRC moved away from using journal impact factors in 2008
• Focusing more on the quality of a few papers, rather than just
counting the total number of publications and being overly influenced
by the reputation of the journal, can help ameliorate the publishmore-and-more syndrome
Anderson, W. (18 Sep 2013). Quality not quantity: measuring the impact of published research. The Conversation
La Trobe University
10
10

11. Issues
• Do authors retain copyright over their published
material?
• How many author manuscript versions are in our
repository?
• How do we compare nationally?
• What works elsewhere?
• How serious are we about providing open access
publications?
• Is there a positive correlation between open access
and citations?
La Trobe University
11
11

12. Empirical evidence
• Many articles state that downloads are higher for OA articles than in
subscription databases
• More downloads = more readers? More readers = more citations?
• Moed, H. (2012). Behind the data. Research Trends, Issue 28. Accessed 25
Oct 2013: http://www.researchtrends.com/category/issue28-may-2012/
• Gargouri, Y, Harnad, S. et al. (2010). Self-selected or mandated, open access
increases citation impact for higher quality research. PLoS ONE, 5(10).
Accessed 24 Oct 2013.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0
013636
• David, P., et al. (2008). Open access publishing, article downloads and
citations.. BMJ, 337.
• Swan, A. (2010) The Open Access citation advantage: Studies and results to
date. ECS EPrints, 17 Feb 2010, 343-345.
La Trobe University
12

13. La Trobe University
13

14. Ithaka S+R | Jisc | RLUK UK Survey of Academics 2012
UK wide survey of academics spotlights researchers' reliance on
Open Access:
• A major survey of UK Academics released on 29 May 2013
examined the attitudes of researchers and practitioners
working within higher education. It shed light on behaviours,
reliance on digital technologies, the Internet and Open Access.
• The survey, funded by JISC and RLUK received 3,498 responses.
Overarching themes included: increasing reliance on the
Internet for research and publishing and the strong role that
openness is playing in their work. Key findings include: access
limitations, use of open resources, following one's peers and
emergence of e-publications
jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2013/05/jisc-rluk-ithaka-survey.aspx
La Trobe University
14

15. Empirical evidence
La Trobe University
15

16. Green Open Access in La Trobe’s Research Repository
(Research Online)
• Authors can upload their manuscript version (or email)
• The Repository staff will:
• Check copyright
• Check publisher permissions (for La Trobe)
• Link to the published version
• Make any alternate versions available (if you have
provided them)
• Self-deposit form: latrobe.edu.au/researchonline
• repository@latrobe.edu.au
La Trobe University
16
16