This document provides information about open access for PhD students in business. It defines open access as free digital resources without copyright or licensing restrictions. It explains that open access matters for career development as articles are viewed more when freely available. It outlines how students can make their thesis and publications open access through Imperial College's institutional repository Spiral or open access journals. It also discusses relevant policies from research funders and selecting appropriate journals for publication.

1. Library
Services
Open Access for Business
PhD students
Rosemary Russell and Heather Lincoln
Liaison Librarians, Business and Professional
Development

2. To cover…
• What is Open Access?
• Why does it matter?
• How you as PhD students (and beyond!) can benefit
from OA:
• as consumers & producers
• Making your thesis/other publications OA
• Spiral
• Pointers and tools to help
• REF and wider OA environment
NB: links from slides to lots of further detailed info!

4. What is Open Access?
• free of charge access to digital scholarly resources for
everyone
• free of most copyright and licensing restrictions
• so, can reuse as long as appropriate credit given to
the creator

6. And also…
• journal subscription costs rocketed in last 2 decades
• libraries can’t afford all resources required by all
researchers
• UK extra % increase as result of Brexit…

7. Why does OA matter to your career?
• Evidence!
• Research shows open access articles are viewed three
times more than articles in journals requiring a
subscription
= raised profile for author (and institution)

8. How do I make my publications
Open Access?

9. Green or Gold?

10. Imperial Open Access mandate
• All research publications to be deposited in Spiral
• Final peer reviewed copy of papers
• Green OA preferred route, unless funding for gold
available

11. Imperial Open Access Fund
• Used to pay APCs
• = upfront payment to publisher
• can be very expensive!
• For researchers without OA funding as part of a research
award
• available to PhD students
• Apply when deposit article in Spiral
• after publisher has accepted your manuscript
• NB – only for fully open access journals (not hybrid)

12. Hybrid journals
• Subscription journals which provide open access to
individual articles on payment of an APC
• = ‘double dipping’
• libraries pay twice! (universities x3…)

13. Preparing your thesis for submission
• Depositing in Spiral = publication
• so permission needed to reproduce extracts, images,
figures, etc. for which you do not own the copyright,
including:
• other people’s work
• your own work (rights vary between publishers)
• Imperial theses use Creative Commons Attribution Non-
Commercial-NoDerivs licence
• Lots of guidance available on Library website
• Current student example query… (HL)

14. Reproducing your own published work
• Don't assume you have the right to reproduce your own
published papers, images etc in your thesis!
• Check which rights were transferred to the publisher
when you signed the publishing agreement

15. Publishing material from your thesis
• Journals generally accept papers based on work already
written up in a thesis
• Should be a reworking of the material in your thesis
• You retain copyright in your thesis unless:
• sponsored
• building on IP generated by/invented with Imperial employee
• concurrently an employee of Imperial
• avoid self-plagiarism by citing and referencing

16. Selecting a journal
• Free to publish in most suitable place
• green OA encouraged by Imperial
• Discuss with your supervisor
• Be very wary of publishers who email you!
• predatory journals advice
• Key tool: Directory of Open Access Journals

17. ‘Top’ business journals and compliance…
• Imperial BS Core Journals list
• FT Research Rank journals
• CABS academic journal guide
• Accounting Review not OA!

19. Spiral
• College policy that all PhD theses are made publicly
available on Spiral
• Your thesis is offered under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence

20. ORCID
• ORCID researcher IDs ensure that research outputs can be traced to their
authors
• Your ID follows you throughout your career and is not dependent on which
institutions you work at
• ORCID IDs may be requested in manuscript and grant submissions
• Imperial College has been a ORCID member since 2014 and commenced
ORCID project as part of wider OA college project
• Symplectic Elements can automatically add publications from the ORCID
registry to a researcher’s institutional profile
• ORCID can help with OA. To be eligible for next REF accepted manuscripts
must be deposited with 3 months
• Other researcher IDs linked to database/search engines:
• MyResearcherID: Web of Science
• Scopus Author ID: Scopus
• Google Scholar Citation Profile

21. Requesting an embargo on a thesis…
• Some situations where necessary to delay publication of
a thesis
• However often not needed
• eg journal editors expect theses to be OA – will still
accept your article based on your thesis!
• 45% of theses currently embargoed ‘pending
publication’…

22. Other OA stuff to know for your future
academic career
or now, if working with BS academic staff with
research funding (or own funding)

23. Research funders' OA policies
• OA policies vary!
• Publications need to meet funders’ OA requirements
• Tools are available to help!
• SHERPA/RoMEO search…

25. REF: Research Excellence
Framework compliance
• HEFCE post-2014 REF open access policy
• applies to all journal articles and conference papers
accepted for publication from 1 April 2016
• transitional period - deposit paper within 3 months
from the date of publication
• from 1 April 2018 - deposit accepted manuscript
within 3 months of acceptance
• By depositing your accepted manuscript in Spiral now,
your final published journal article or conference paper
will be eligible for submission to REF2021

26. Research Data Management
• Good management ensures that data remains available
to validate claims made in published research
• Funders may require publication of data
• Library provides advice on:
• Data management planning
• Data storage
• Making your data discoverable
• Lunchtime RDM sessions
• every second Tuesday of the month

27. Student OA initiatives (1):
Open Access Button
• Finding free research, requesting research, plus
advocacy
• ‘Hiding research behind paywalls shouldn’t be the
way we do things’ (Richard Carroll, medical student
and co-founder)
• Development at Imperial

28. Student OA initiatives (2):
Right to Research Coalition
• ‘access to research is a student right’
• advocates for OA polices and educates students
about OA

29. UK Scholarly Communication Licence
• UK-SCL
• OA policy mechanism which ensures researchers can
retain re-use rights in their own work
• Supports researchers covered under multiple funder
policies
• Development led by Imperial

30. To sum up…
• Importance of Open Access
• How you can benefit
• How to make your thesis OA
• Tools
• Wider OA context
• Lots of further OA information
• Questions?

31. Library
Services
libbpd@imperial.ac.uk
Business Library Team:
Heather Lincoln, Andrew Regan, Rosemary Russell & Kay Griffiths
• Phone/email/skype
• 1 to 1s available upon request
• Librarians’ office, Level 1, Central Library

32. Acknowledgement
Slide 5: graphic produced by The Australasian Open
Access Strategy Group (AOASG)