Articles and conference papers

How to make your article open access

Articles, conference papers and other peer-reviewed short-form research outputs are some of the items that are most commonly published open access. 

This page includes a step-by-step guide to publishing these outputs open access, along with the resources to help you do so.


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Step-by-step guide

Follow these steps to publish your article or conference paper open access:

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Step 1: Identify where to publish

Use 'Think. Check. Submit' to assess the relevant journals and choose which is most suitable

Step 2: Check any policy requirements

If you receive funding for your research, you will need to comply with your funder’s requirements for open access. (You may also find that they will give you the funding for open access publishing.) If you don’t receive funding, there will still be policies you need to be aware of: You will need to comply with the University's publication policy. You may also be subject to the REF, so check its policy too.

Learn more about OA policy requirements

Step 3: Use open policy finder (prev. Sherpa Romeo) to assess the open access routes available to you

Open policy finder is an online service that helps you to check which open access route or model your chosen journal will allow.

Learn more about open policy finder

Step 4: Submit your manuscript

Send your article or conference paper to the publisher. Remember to use your Oxford email (ox.ac.uk) during the submission process.

Tip: If you have an Oxford-registered ORCID this process might be simplified, because logging in using your ORCID often auto-populates the form.

Learn more about registering your ORCID

Step 5: Pay any fees

When your article is accepted, you may have to pay a fee to the publisher (an ‘article processing charge’). This will depend on their open access route/model:

- If the journal is diamond/platinum, there will be no charge.

- If the journal is fully gold you may have to pay a charge (you can find out on open policy finder).

 - If the journal is hybrid you will have to pay a charge to make your work open in the journal itself. But you can also make your work open access (at no cost) using the 'green' open access deposit method via the Oxford University Research Archive (ORA).

Learn more about OA payments

Step 6: Congratulations! Your work is now open access

Depending on the journal's open access allowances, either:

- The journal itself has made the work open (gold/platinum/paid hybrid),

or

- The hybrid journal is paywalled but you have made the work open access by depositing using the 'green route'.

Deposit your work into ORA


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