Oxford University open access publications policy: Full text

The Bodleian can advise on relevant issues, including: sources of funds, licensing / copyright options, conversations with co-authors about OA costs, and on the relationship between OA and IP. 

Eligible outputs include journal articles, conference papers, reports, books, book sections and chapters and working & discussion papers.  

Consideration should be given to budgeting for OA publication costs within the grant application, where permitted by the funder, and/or use of rights retention statements to ensure compliance.

Oxford employees by default give the University the rights to make the author accepted manuscript versions of journal articles and conference proceedings available open access without embargo periods. Researchers can choose to opt out of this on a work-by-work basis and more information is available at openaccess.ox.ac.uk/rights-retention. The detail of the grant of rights provided by employees to the University under Statute XVI is provided in Annex 2. 

It is recommended that a rights retention statement is added to the manuscript of a journal article or conference proceeding before submitting it to the publisher as this may be a requirement of the funder. An explanation and a copy of the rights retention statement text is set out in Annex 3. 

Authors are encouraged to retain their copyright, and to publish using the widest possible open licence i.e. Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)

Other publication types

Researchers are also strongly encouraged to deposit the full text of all other publications, including monographs, book chapters, working and discussion papers, and reports.

Research data

Authors should either deposit into ORA or create a record of any underlying datasets and other research materials in accordance with the University’s Policy on the Management of Data Supporting Research Outputs, and funder details (where applicable).

Use IT Self-Service or claim your ORCID in Symplectic Elements. By using your Oxford-verified ORCID at every available opportunity, e.g. when submitting publications or applying for grants, you ensure that you are credited for your work with the correct institutional affiliation.

Where appropriate, researchers are strongly encouraged to discuss with Oxford University Innovation the commercial potential of their research outputs before making a publication available under this policy. Making a publication available under this policy on OA terms will not affect the ownership of any IP which the University claims under Section 6 of Part B of Statute XVI: Property, Contracts, and Trusts.

Refer to: The Digital Theses at ORA LibGuide

Refer to: General Regulations Governing Research Degrees

A thesis will be made open access on deposit unless the student has been granted a 1-year or 3-year embargo, or dispensation from consultation from their academic department.

Researchers may publish in their choice of publication, provided funder requirements are met and in the context of the University’s principles for maximising the use of OA block funds (see Annex 1).

This includes: administration of monies from funders to meet publishers’ OA charges; provision of training, information, and platforms (see below); and advice on OA matters to researchers in order to make their work open and accessible.

ORA makes research outputs freely available as soon as possible (subject to the authors’ and/or publisher’s permissions and any confidentiality or commercial constraints), and to promote widespread discovery, dissemination and maximise citation of works.

New publishing models will be supported and sustained by institutional block grant funds, where possible and, in collaboration with Divisions and Departments, through savings made from existing library budgets.

Efforts will be made to influence publishing policies, costs, and practices that affect Oxford authors. The Bodleian Libraries collaborates with Jisc and other UK HEIs to reach cost-effective publishing deals and influence national OA policy.