Green open access (OA), also known as self-archiving, refers to making the accepted manuscript of a published scholarly work available to the public in an institutional or disciplinary repository.
Ulster University Research Portal is our institutional repository. It is hosted on a platform called Pure.
There is no cost to the author associated with green open access.
Green OA route ensures compliance with REF and UKRI open access policies, provided that the publisher-imposed embargo periods do not exceed allowed limits.
In academic publishing, three different versions of a research output are distinguished:
The accepted manuscript has the same content as the version of record, but the layout will usually be different and there will be no pagination.
When the version of record is locked behind a paywall, the accepted manuscript version must be uploaded to Pure to ensure REF and funder policy compliance.
Gold open access (OA) is where the author makes their published work freely available via the publisher's website. The publisher does not charge readers for access but requires a payment of an article processing charge (APC) from the author or the author's institution.
The published work is made available under an open access licence, usually a type of Creative Commons. This allows the readers not only to read your work, but also to reuse it under the terms specified in the licence.
Gold OA route ensures compliance with REF and UKRI open access policies.
Ulster University has a number of agreements with publishers in place which allow authors affiliated with Ulster University to publish open access in selected journals. These deals are managed by the Library Open Research Team.
Further information is available on the Publisher Agreements page.
Once published, the final published version, also known as the version of record (VoR), must be uploaded to Pure to enable monitoring of REF and funder policy compliance.
Diamond open access (OA) combines elements of both green and gold OA: there are no submission fees for authors and no access fees for readers.
Diamond publishers are community-governed, scholarly-led, non-profit initiatives financed through various models of institutional crowdfunding or membership.
The published work is made available under an open access licence, usually a type of Creative Commons. This allows the readers not only to read your work, but also to reuse it under the terms specified in the licence.
Diamond OA route ensures compliance with REF and UKRI open access policies.
Diamond OA publishers are usually community funded. This means that the author's affiliated institution is often expected to contribute towards the operational costs of the publisher. However, such contributions are much lower than open access charges imposed by commercial book publishers.
If you are a UKRI-funded author and the book you want to publish is resulting from this funding, you are mandated to make it open access. Our team can help in the process of applying for funds to cover a contribution to a diamond OA publisher of your choice.
Below is a selected list of established diamond OA book and journal publishers.
Find more diamond open access journals at:
