Wellcome Trust-funded Research Papers and Open Access at the University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen University has been given funding by the Wellcome Trust to support Open Access Publishing. The following information has been taken from the Wellcome Trust Authors' Guide and FAQ on open and unrestricted access to published research (last updated: 14 March 2007). For the full guide go to: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_wtd018855.html#P25_1964
1. What is Open Access Publishing?
1.1 An open access publication is one that meets the following two conditions:
(a) The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual (for the lifetime of the applicable copyright) right of access to the work, and a licence to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make printed copies for their personal use.
(b) A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format, are deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organisation that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.
1.2. The Wellcome Trust considers that there are two routes to achieving unrestricted access to the published research literature. One is to publish the original research paper in an open access publication (as in the definition in paragraph 1.1 above); another approach is to publish in any journal that allows deposition of a copy of the final manuscript into a freely accessible digital repository.
1.3. In October 2005, the Trust decided that all its grantholders must use PubMed Central (PMC), or UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) once established, as the Trust's required digital repository: more details of this policy change are set out in the following paragraphs. Grantholders should note that deposition of their research paper into PMC and UKPMC does not prevent them from also depositing a copy in their own institutional or another subject-based repository should they choose to do so or be required to do so.
1.4. The University of Aberdeen has its own institutional repository – AURA, http://auraserv.abdn.ac.uk:9080/aura/. For more details on publishing in AURA please contact Mel Bickerton in the Medical Library, email: m.bickerton@abdn.ac.uk
2. What is the current Wellcome Trust policy in support of open and unrestricted access to the research literature?
2.1 The Trust has a position statement on this issue, which includes the specific obligations of institutions, grantholders and all others supported by grants.
Specifically, the Wellcome Trust:
- Expects authors of research papers to maximise the opportunities to make their results freely available and, where possible, to retain their copyright.
- Will provide grantholders with additional funding to cover the open access charges levied by publishers who support the open access model.
- Requires electronic copies of any research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by Wellcome Trust funding, to be made freely accessible from the PMC database (and any other PMC International (PMCI) sites, such as UKPMC) as soon as possible, and in any event within six months of the journal publisher's official date of final publication.
3. When was this policy implemented?
The Wellcome Trust Grant Conditionswere amended with effect from 1 October 2006. The policy is mandatory for all grantholders, irrespective of when their grant was awarded.
4. What kind of papers are covered by this policy?
4.1 The policy applies to peer-reviewed, original (primary) research publications that have been supported, in whole or in part, by the Wellcome Trust. The policy does not apply to book chapters, editorials, reviews or conference proceedings.
4.2 The Trust's contribution must be acknowledged in all publications, quoting the relevant grant reference number.
5. What is PubMed Central (PMC)?
PMC, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/about/faq.html, is an archive of life science journal literature operated by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM). Access to PMC is free and unrestricted via the Internet.
6. What is UKPMC?
6.1 The Wellcome Trust – in association with a number of other UK biomedical funders – has established a UK version of PMC: UKPMC, http://ukpmc.ac.uk/. The contract to run UKPMC has been awarded to a partnership between the British Library, the University of Manchester and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).
6.2 The aim of this initiative is to create a stable, permanent and free-to-access digital archive of the full text, peer-reviewed research publications (and datasets) that arise from research funded by the Wellcome Trust and other members of the UKPMC Funders Group.
6.3 UKPMC comprises of three key systems. One, a mirror of the data held in PMC, subject to permission from those publishers that participate in PMC. Two, an author manuscript submission and tracking system – the UK Manuscript Submission System (UKMSS) – with supporting document conversion services. Three, a system to provide authenticated login services to the submission system
7. How do I comply with this policy?
7.1 As an author there are two ways in which you can comply with the grant condition to ensure that your Wellcome supported research is made freely accessible via PMC and UKPMC.
7.2 Firstly, you can submit your manuscript to a journal that offers an open access option. Journals who provide this facility will take responsibility for depositing the final, published version of your paper in PMC/UKPMC and making it freely available on the day of publication.
7.3 Publishers that provide this option include all the open access publishers (such as BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science) as well as an increasing number of traditional publishers who have introduced a model in which individual articles can be made open access. Under this model the author pays a fee from their research grant to the publisher to make their article accessible for free online, immediately it is published in the journal. A copy of the article can be deposited in PMC/UKPMC, again with immediate free access. Examples of publishers who have introduced a hybrid OA model include OUP, Blackwell, Springer, CUP, BMJPG, and Elsevier.
7.4 If you submit your manuscript to a publisher that does not offer an open access option you can still comply with the policy by depositing – via UKMSS – a copy of the final, peer reviewed manuscript for inclusion in PMC/UKPMC. In cases where the author manuscript is deposited, these papers must be made freely available as soon as possible, and in any event not later than six months after the journal publisher's official date of final publication.
Examples of publishers who support this model include the American Medical Association, Company of Biologists and Nature Publishing Group.
8. How can I find out whether my journal has a Wellcome Trust-compliant policy with regard to depositing my manuscript in PMC?
8.1 The SHERPA/RoMEO database (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php) developed by the University of Nottingham, will provide information – at the journal title level – as to whether or not a journal has a publication policy that is compliant with the Trust's Grant Conditions.
8.2 If the journal to which you wish to submit your manuscript is not listed in the database the Trust strongly encourages you to speak directly to the journal's editorial staff to determine their policy.
9. If I submitted a paper to a journal before 1 October 2006, but it only gets accepted for publication after this date, am I required to withdraw my manuscript in cases where the journal does not have a Wellcome Trust-compliant publishing policy?
9.1 The Wellcome Trust recognises that authors do not have any control over when a paper is accepted for publication. Consequently, they do not require Wellcome Trust funded researchers to withdraw manuscripts which were submitted for publication before the 1st October 2006, irrespective of when they actually get accepted for publication and published.
9.2 To be clear, however, all papers that are submitted for publication from 1st October 2006 must only be submitted to those journals that have a Wellcome Trust compliant publishing policy.
10. What should I do if the journal does not have an open-access option, nor does it allow me to self-archive my manuscript for inclusion in PMC/UKPMC?
10.1 Authors must ensure, in advance of making any agreement with or commitment to a publisher at any stage, that the agreement or commitment does not conflict with the author's obligations under the Wellcome Trust Grant Conditions, http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD004055.html. Specifically, authors should inform the journal that they have an existing obligation to make their research available through PMC/UKPMC, and investigate whether the publisher's policy is in conflict with this obligation.
10.2 The Wellcome Trust's Grant Conditions are mandatory and binding on institutions, grantholders, and all others supported by a grant. An author's obligations to the Wellcome Trust will therefore, in almost all cases, pre-date any agreement with a journal.
10.3 Authors are unlikely to be able to comply with the Grant Conditions if, without reaching a specific agreement with the journal about deposition of a copy of the final paper in PMC/UKPMC, they transfer their copyright (or undertake to do so in the future) to a journal.
10.4 If such a conflict exists, authors have a variety of options:
(a) Grant a licence of their copyright to a journal instead of assigning. Such a licence would have to deal with the rights granted to the journal in such a way as to allow the journal to publish but still allow the author to make their research available through PMC/UKPMC. In this way, authors should be able to retain ownership of their copyright and still allow publication in a journal. This could be achieved, for example, through using the JISC SURF Licence to Publish, http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/authors/licence/, which was developed in consultation with the Wellcome Trust.
(b) Agree to a journal's normal arrangements only on the condition that it be specifically agreed that deposition in PMC/UKPMC can take place. Copyright agreements can take many forms, but the following is an example of the sort of wording that could be included in an agreement with a journal that would still allow an author to comply with the Wellcome Trust Grant Conditions:
Notwithstanding any of the other provisions of this agreement, the journal acknowledges that the researcher will be entitled to deposit an electronic copy of the final, peer-reviewed manuscript for inclusion in PubMed Central (PMC), and for this manuscript to be mirrored to all PMC international sites, such as UKPMC. Manuscripts deposited with PMC (and UKPMC) may be made freely available to the public, via the internet, within six months of the official date of final publication in the journal.
(c) Reconsider where to publish. This is anticipated to be an exceptional circumstance. It is also worth noting that the UK Research Councils and a number of national and non-government funding agencies around the world have adopted very similar positions, which make it likely that that the arrangements suggested here will become part of normal research practice within a few years.
11. If a publisher offers a funded-access option, as a Wellcome-funded author am I obligated to select this option?
11.1 It depends on the policy of the publisher.
11.2 If the publisher offers a funded-access option, the Trust would always encourage authors to take advantage of this. If, however, the author wishes not to take advantage of a funded-access option, but instead to deposit a version of the manuscript manually, the author may choose between this route and the funded-access option as long as the publisher allows self-archiving of a suitable version of the manuscript within the scope of the Trust's Grant Conditions.
11.3 If a publisher only offers a funded access option – which provides free access to the published version in PMC/UKPMC, at the time of publication – then to comply with the Trust Grant Conditions the author must select this option. By way of example, when publishing with Elsevier, Trust-funded authors must select the funded access option in order to comply with the Trust grant conditions.
12. In cases where I am self-archiving the paper for inclusion in PMC/UKPMC, when should I do this, which version should I deposit and how do I do it?
12.1 An electronic version of the author's final manuscript resulting from research supported, in whole or in part, by Wellcome Trust funding must be submitted upon acceptance for publication.
12.2 The version of the paper that should be archived is the final version that is accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer-review process. When self-archiving, the publishers PDF version should NOT be deposited.
12.3 A quick reference guide that details the submission process is available at the UKMSS (UK Manuscript Submission System) site, https://ukmss.mimas.ac.uk/ukmss/local/UKMSS_help.htm
12.4 Papers should be deposited using the UKMSS, https://ukmss.mimas.ac.uk/ukmss/login/uls.cgi?rss=wt&url=../sub.cgi?login=wt
13. Who can self-archive a manuscript?
13.1 Manuscript files may be submitted to UKMSS by the author or anyone given access to the author's files (administrative personnel, graduate students, etc.).
13.2 In cases where a paper has been written by someone other than the principal investigator (PI) (typically named as the grantholder), submission to UKMSS should be made using a user-created login. (A login account can be created at the UKMSS site). In cases where the PI is the author, submissions should be made using the UKMSS login-account, automatically supplied to the PI. (If you have not received, or have mislaid this login, please contact the British Library helpdesk on 01937 546699 or by email at: ukpmc@bl.uk)
13.3 Irrespective of who submits the paper, approval of the PDF receipt and web version of the manuscript require PI review and authorisation. Until this happens, submitted papers are not processed.
Please note that in cases where the research has been undertaken by staff other than the PI (e.g. research assistants etc.), it is still the responsibility of the PI to review and authorise the manuscript. Once approved, the citation in PubMed - and the full text in PubMed Central/UKPMC - will cite the authors as listed in the manuscript, irrespective of whether or not this includes the PI as a named author.
14. How can I be sure that an author-submitted manuscript that is a made available in PMC/UKPMC was published in a peer-reviewed journal?
14.1 While any researcher can make a deposition of a research paper (via UKMSS) they have to assign a principal investigator (PI) and a grant number(s) to that paper. Only a grantholder known to the Wellcome Trust (or another member of the UKPMC Funders Group) can authorise the paper to enter the PMC/UKPMC process (XML mark-up etc.).
14.2 Once the marked-up article has been authorised by the PI, this will be loaded into PMC and then mirrored to UKPMC. This paper will become publicly available after the delay period (if any) has elapsed, and following a final check of the PubMed database to ensure that the submission does relate to a published paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
15. Do I need to make my previously published papers accessible through PMC/UKPMC?
No. The policy only applies to research papers resulting from grants awarded after 1 October 2005, and from 1 October 2006 to all grants, regardless of award date. Whilst the Trust would be delighted to see previously published papers deposited, we are in no position to insist on this due to the existence of copyright agreements between researcher and publisher which pre-date our Grant Conditions. We have specifically advised our researchers to ensure that no such agreements are breached.
16. How will Open Access costs be met at the University of Aberdeen?
16.1 There is a mechanism whereby Wellcome Trust-funded researchers can access additional funds to cover these costs. A number of institutions have been awarded additional funds specifically to cover the costs of open access, Aberdeen University is among these institutions.
16.2 Accessing these funds will depend on where you wish to publish. To publish in a journal via BioMed Central, http://www.biomedcentral.com/, researchers with Wellcome funding should fill in the claim form for open access fees and pass it to Mel Bickerton in the Medical Library, email: m.bickerton@abdn.ac.uk, who will then supply a password which will allow you to publish your paper.
16.3 To publish in a non BMC journal researchers must first establish that the journal complies with Wellcome policy on open access above (and make sure that a copy is deposited in PMC/UKPMC either by the journal or by self-submission). Once you are satisfied that the journal complies with the Wellcome conditions please fill in the
and pass to Kirsteen Watt in the College Office, email: k.m.watt@abdn.ac.uk, who will ensure that Open Access fees are paid or reimbursed.