Open access publishing means that publications must be immediately available in a machine-readable format, free of charge, with no embargo, and under an open licence. This blog post tells you how to publish green Open Access with ZORA to increase your citations and your visibility!

swissuniversities and the SNSF recently presented their revised National Open Access Strategy in which they called for immediate, machine-readable access to publicly funded scholarly publications with no embargo or any financial barriers. To achieve this vision, the new strategy emphasizes the development and coordination of infrastructure and services, especially for diamond and green Open Access.

Fortunately, Swiss research institutions have already made significant progress in switching to Open Access, and the the proportion of Open Access publications is increasing. As shown by the Swiss Journal Monitor (OAM-CH) in Figure 1, nearly two-thirds of the journal articles published in the last five years are openly accessible (see diagram on the left). A closer look at this period also shows a decreasing trend for green Open Access, while hybrid Open Access has doubled up to 32% (the diagram on the right).

This development is not uncontroversial: hybrid Open Access means that the published version of the manuscript was made available on the journal’s website upon payment of an article-processing-charge – either paid by the author or through an institution’s read-and-publish contracts with the publisher. Green Open Access – on the other hand – refers to the free-of-charge self-archiving done by the authors themselves. Mostly by uploading the accepted manuscript (but not the publisher’s version) on an institutional or discipline-specific repository.

GIUZ as one of the pioneers in green Open Access publishing

Having a closer look at the Department of Geography by extracting data from the institutional repository Zurich Open Repository and Archive ZORA, and visualizing them with UZH OA-Monitor, the situation presents itself slightly differently. From 2022 to today, nearly half of all publications with corresponding authors at UZH were published in green Open Access and this number seems to have been increasing over the years (Figure 2). Further, the Department of Geography shows a total Open Access output of nearly 78%. This means that the Department of Geography is one of the institutes with a higher proportion of open access.

Green Open Access does not come “for free”

In line with the new National Open Access Strategy, green Open Access seems to be a valuable road to make publications openly available. However, even though self-archiving might be free of charge, it also comes with its “costs”: Since self-archiving in most cases is either done by the researchers themselves or by a dedicated person in the lab or the library, time resources need to be allocated.

Also, by signing a copyright transfer agreement with the publishers upon publication of their manuscript, most researchers give exclusive author rights away and will then need to follow the conditions set out in said agreement before being able to upload their manuscripts anywhere. Mostly, these constraints concern the time period (embargo period) that authors must wait until they can make their manuscripts available online. As data from the UZH OA-Monitor shows, however, even older documents where the embargo period has most likely expired and which could now be made available in green Open Access, are not self-archived and made available on ZORA. The reasons for this are manyfold: often legal uncertainties and time constraints stop researchers from going that route.

How to publish green Open Access with ZORA

The UZH Open Science Policy recommends that all researchers make a full text of their work freely available on ZORA, provided this is legally permitted.

To find out what is legally permitted, you can either check the publisher’s open access policy, the contract you have signed or consult the Sherpa/Romeo-database. Type in your journal name and see what you are allowed to do with your submitted version, the accepted manuscript and maybe you are also allowed to self-archive the publisher’s version of your manuscript without any fees associated.

Alternatively, you can go directly to ZORA, add your publication and the ZORA editorial team will take care of the rest.

To get started:

1. login to ZORA and add the information about your publication.
2. Add your manuscript:

In case where the publisher’s version is allowed to be self-archived without costs:

• Submit the published version or the DOI of your publication to zora@geo.uzh.ch or upload it directly to the entry in ZORA. The ZORA editorial office will then clarify any embargo periods and add your manuscript to ZORA accordingly.

If the manuscript accepted by the author is allowed to be self-archived:

• Supplement your submission on ZORA with this manuscript or send it to zora@geo.uzh.ch. The ZORA editorial office will then clarify any embargo periods and add your manuscript to ZORA accordingly.
  
  What if you don’t have the accepted manuscript? The accepted manuscript is often stored in the submission system of the publisher.  Use the Direkt2AAM (Open Access Button) guide to find out how to download your manuscript.

Important: Self-archiving (accepted) manuscripts in ZORA meets the requirements of the SNSF.

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact Monika Kriemler at UZH Library (Liaison Librarian Geography)

Further information:

• Where to publish Open Access
• Self-archiving in ZORA
• Publishing contract and author rights
• Handout about the legal aspects of self-archiving
• UZH Open Science Policy
• Swiss National Open Access Strategy