Open access is a term used for research publications that are made available to readers without payment and without login. Open access covers different levels of openness and are used for publications that are free to read online as well as publications that have actual open access licenses such as Creative Commons.
Open Access is obtained in different ways. The two primarily used ways are sharing manuscript versions of published articles or publishing open access. Both ways are described more on this site.
In 2018 University of Southern Denmark adopted an open science policy. The policy is set forth by SDU but customized adaptations of the policy are in place for all departments. Because of this the University is actively participating in the process of making research publications openly available through SDU’s own research database, Pure. SDU’s open access publications are also available in various search engines, SDU Library’s Search Well and Unpaywall, a service uses by Web of Science among others.
Furthermore, SDU is part of The National Strategy for Open Access set forth in 2014. The vision of this policy is that all publicly supported research should be made publicly available through green open access. Click these links to read the SDU Open Science policy and The National Strategy for Open Access.
About Open Access to Researchers
Employees that publish are strongly encouraged to pursue green open access in particular. When following green open access, researchers publish behind paywalls and use the retained author rights for early versions of the article. Because it is the journal or publisher that defines the retained rights, terms for sharing will vary.
Each researcher should:
- Save or obtain the peer reviewed draft version from co-authors. This version is called the accepted manuscript.
- Send accepted manuscript and relevant figures and tables to puresupport@bib.sdu.dk.
Researchers at SDU or The University Hospitals in the Region of Southern Jutland can also publish open access through SDU Library’s Open Access agreements. These are linked in the box to the right on this page. ¨
If a researcher wishes to publish open access outside of the open access agreement, this is allowed but it is not encouraged to publish open access in hybrid journals. The reason for this is that the university wishes to reduce the flow of funds to the same journals SDU Library already pays subscription fees to.
Hybrid journals are characterized by having a mixture of articles that are behind paywall and articles that are open access.
Open Access at the Library
Team Pure at SDU Library supports open access in the following ways:
- Obtains open access information about each research publication for SDU’s research registration system, Pure
- Uploads accepted manuscripts on behalf of researchers in accordance with the applicable conditions for sharing in each case
- Reports on open access to SDU and to departments. Reports are made to research centers when requested
Yearly assessment of Open Access
Open Access is monitored on national level in the Danish Open Access Indicator once a year and typically early March. The national assessment harvest publication data two years after each publication year.
In April the results of the annual assessment are made public. Shortly hereafter SDU Library distributed the results down to department level and sends it to all Head of Department together with the provisional status for the latest complete publication year which is continuously updated by SDU Library.
Department Heads receives a publication list from the year before with publications that can be made open access with an effort from the publication’s authors. This gives the department an opportunity to focus its open access effort before the final, national assessment of a publication year.
For questions or guidance, please contact open-acces@bib.sdu.dk