The University of Kent Research Publications Policy requires you to publish your article Open Access and archive it in the Kent Academic Repository (KAR). Most funders also require Open Access publication.

You can publish your work openly in an Open journal or a hybrid journal and use Gold, Green or Diamond routes to achieve Open Access.

The best route depends on the available funding, your intended audience and the publishers of your research.

Read on to find out what these terms mean and see our Open Access Glossary.

You must retain copyright in the Author Accepted Manuscript version of your article, add it to KAR with a CC BY licence and make it openly available upon publication.  

The Library will do this for you. Use the REF Assisted Deposit Service to send us your manuscript.    

This will ensure that your article meets the requirements for the REF and other funder requirements.

This route of publishing is referred to as Green Open Access.

Open journals make all their articles available Open Access. There are no subscription charges and no paywalls, so anyone can read and use the articles.

Publishing in an Open journal means:

• your article will be available immediately, without an embargo
• your publication will be eligible for the REF
• you keep the copyright over your work and make use of a Creative Commons licence
• you're usually allowed to use the Version of Record (publisher’s pdf) on KAR and on websites.

Some Open journals are funded by the payment of a charge to publish an article. This is called an Article Processing Charge (APC); they don't make money through subscriptions (an example is the Public Library of Science). These types of journals are often referred to as Gold Open Access journals or pure Gold titles.

Some Open journals provide Open Access free of charge and do not charge subscriptions or APCs. These types of journals can be referred to as Diamond or Platinum journals. The University hosts several of these Open Access journals.

Directory of Open Access journals

Good quality peer-reviewed Open journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Hybrid journals don't make all their articles available Open Access. They combine subscription access with Open Access. They have subscription charges and paywalls, which means that only users who have a subscription, or who are members of a university where the library has paid the subscription, can read and use the articles. 

Alongside this subscription access, individual articles in a hybrid journal are made available Open Access through the payment of an Article Processing Charge.

You can make your article Open Access in a hybrid journal by:

• using APCs made available to you by the Read and Publish agreements paid for by the Library 
  
• applying for APC funding for journals where the Library does not have an agreement
• paying for an APC using project funding or another independent means.

Use these tools to choose a quality, trusted Open Access journal or publisher.

Need research support or advice? Email researchsupport@kent.ac.uk

Find out all the ways you can get in touch.