Open Access publishing - gold or green

Open Access (OA) publishing follows two routes - Gold and Green. Under the Gold route, a research paper is made freely available online by the publisher of a journal. In many cases the author has to pay the publisher an Article Processing Charge (APC) for this. Using the Green route, a research paper is archived in an OA subject or institutional repository like Bradford Scholars. There is no charge for Green OA publishing.

Some research councils specify which repository to use for archiving. Publishers will also, in some cases, impose embargo periods during which full access to self-archived articles is not permitted. Restrictions may also be in place as to which version (pre-print or post-print) may be archived in an OA repository. In order to comply with the UKRI and Research England policies, the acceptable version for self-archiving is the peer-reviewed and final author version of the research article. NB! this may differ in formatting from the publisher's final published PDF which in many cases may not be self-archived. UKRI and Research England have also placed restrictions on the length of permitted embargo periods and the type of OA license applied by the publisher. In all cases, the chosen repository must comply with certain metadata and digital preservation requirements. The University of Bradford OA repository - Bradford Scholars - is fully compliant with the above mentioned policies.

It is worth noting that authors may often, depending on publisher policies, do both: publish via the Gold route AND self-archive simultaneously using the Green route. This approach has the potential to further increase the reach and readership of research. 

All researches wanting to deposit papers into Bradford Scholars need to do so via the Research Information System (RIS) by logging into their profile. Information on how to deposit is available on the RaIS intranet pages.