Open Access

'Author's version' refers to the final version of the manuscript after peer review, but before the final layout by the publisher. This version is also known as the 'post-reviewed preprint', 'accepted version', 'postprint', 'post-refereed print', or 'author's accepted manuscript (AAM)'.

In contrast to fully Open Access journals, hybrid journals are subscription-based but offer authors the option to publish their individual article in Open Access by paying an 'article processing charge' (APC). The articles published via this route are freely accessible to readers, but the journal itself is still published behind a paywall. This practice is referred to as 'double dipping' because the journal makes double profits: on one hand, the author pays a publication fee to make their article Open Access, and on the other hand, the reader/library pays a subscription fee to access the other articles in the same journal.

• The preprint is the manuscript that has not yet undergone peer review and has not been accepted for publication.
• The postprint is the peer-reviewed manuscript that has been accepted for publication (usually a Word or LaTeX file). It has the same content as the published version, but without the final formatting done by the publisher.

What is Plan S?

Plan S was launched in September 2018 by cOAlition S, a consortium of national research institutions and funders from twelve European countries, with the main goal of accelerating the transition to immediate Open Access. All researchers who have been funded since 2021 by an organisation supporting Plan S are required to make the publications resulting from their Plan S-funded research immediately available in Open Access (without embargo) and under a free license. Learn more about the principles of Plan S on the cOAlition S website.

Why was Plan S launched?

The idea behind Plan S is that optimal scientific progress can only be achieved when research results are openly available to the community, allowing them to be scrutinized and reviewed by other scientists and enabling maximum building upon previous research. The subscription-based model of scientific publishing, where a significant portion of publications is behind paywalls, is no longer sustainable and poses a fundamental barrier to science and to society at large.

To which types of publications does Plan S apply? 

All peer-reviewed scientific publications of any type fall under Plan S. However, the guidelines for monographs and book chapters have not yet been specified. Additionally, cOAlition S encourages making research data and other research outputs "as open as possible and as closed as necessary" publicly available.

Who does Plan S apply to?

Plan S is applicable to all researchers funded by organisations supporting Plan S since 2021. It does not yet apply to the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) and ERC (European Research Council), but it does apply to Horizon Europe (pdf, 912 KB).

How can I comply with the Plan S requirements?

At the moment, Plan S applies only to journal articles. If these articles arise from research funded after January 1, 2021, by a research funder that supports Plan S, they must be made immediately available in Open Access and under a free license (without embargo). This can be achieved in several ways:

• Consult the journal Checker Tool, a web-based instrument that provides researchers with advice on how to comply with the Plan S-aligned Open Access policies of their funders when they wish to publish in their chosen journal. If you cannot find the journal you wish to publish in via the Journal Checker Tool, consider one of the options listed below.
• Publish in an Open Access journal or through an Open Access platform listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
• Publish in a subscription-based journal and deposit at least the author's version (or the published version if possible) of your publication in an Open Access repository that is aligned with Plan S (such as the UHasselt Document Server), without embargo and with the mention of a free license. Since most publishers impose embargoes by default, you can use the rights retention strategy proposed by cOAlition S to override this. Specifically, follow these steps:
  • Add the following text to the cover page or acknowledgements section of your author's version before submitting it to your chosen journal: "This research was funded, in whole or in part, by [Organisation Name, Grant #]. A CC BY or equivalent license is applied to [the AAM / the VoR] arising from this submission, in accordance with the grant’s open access conditions." The AAM refers to the Author Accepted Manuscript, which is the author's version of your publication. VoR stands for Version of Record, which is the final published version of your article.
  • Once your article is accepted for publication, deposit your author's version in a public repository such as the UHasselt Document Server.
  • If your publisher does not agree with the above approach, contact your funder for further guidance.
• Publish in a hybrid journal that falls under a transformative agreement. With this agreement, the publisher commits to transforming the journal into a fully Open Access journal in the near future.

You publish your work behind a paywall (in a journal with a subscription model), but after publication, you deposit the author's version of your article in a free online database, such as Document Server, the institutional repository of UHasselt, making your article freely available to the rest of the world. Of course, this is done within the limits allowed by copyright.

For journal articles, the University Library applies the Belgian Open Access legislation by default. This law grants you the right to make the author's version of your journal articles freely available in Open Access through our repository, provided they meet certain conditions, after an embargo period of up to 12 months (for humanities and social sciences) or 6 months (for all other sciences). You can also apply the law retroactively, which means that you can even convert previously published articles into Open Access, thereby increasing the accessibility of your research.

What is interesting is that the Belgian Open Access law always supersedes the embargo provisions set by your publisher. This makes it easier for you to comply with any open access requirements imposed by your funder. The full law can be found in Belgisch Staatsblad (Belgian Official Gazette), 2018-09-05, p. 68691, Art. 29 (pdf, 2.6 MB).

You publish your work immediately in Open Access on the publisher's website, making the published version freely accessible to the public. The reader does not have to pay to access your publication.

This route is typically not free. The publication costs, known as 'article processing charges' (APCs), are paid by the author or their institution. The publication fee ranges from 0 to 2,500 euros, and in exceptional cases, amounts of up to 5,000 euros may be charged. UHasselt does not provide a fund to cover these APCs, nor are there deals with publishers in Flanders regarding APC funding. However, before you consider paying the costs yourself, it is worth checking whether your research funder can partially or fully cover them.

Please note: Originally, the gold route was exclusively offered by 'full' Open Access journals, but nowadays, there are also more and more 'hybrid journals', traditional journals that operate under a subscription model but also offer authors the option to make their specific article available in Open Access for a fee (APC). This practice is also known as 'double-dipping' as the publisher benefits twice: once from the subscription fees and again from the APCs. The APC costs are in addition to the normal subscription price of the journal. For this reason, UHasselt advises against publishing in Open Access in hybrid journals.

All UHasselt authors are expected to upload the author’s version of their peer-reviewed publications from subscription journals and proceedings in the repository of Hasselt University (Document Server).

We recommend executing the upload of the publication concurrent to its official publication by the publisher. If desired, this task can be outsourced to a colleague or secretarial assistant.

The University Library checks the embargo provisions of the Belgian Open Access legislation (for journal articles)/the publisher (for proceedings papers) for each uploaded text and adjusts the access on the Document Server accordingly. This results in three options:

• open access: the full text is freely available to everyone, including external parties;
• restricted access: although an embargo has been imposed on the full text, it can nevertheless be consulted by UHasselt staff and UHasselt students once they have logged in;
• closed access: an embargo has been imposed on the full text and it cannot be consulted by anyone; if required, an embargo can even be imposed on the metadata.

To be clear:

• The UHasselt author will receive an email confirming the successful inclusion of her/his work in the repository. Should there be any missing details, the University Library will contact the UHasselt author.
• Publications that are recorded in the Web of Science are checked by the University Library once they have been included in the Web of Science, and, if necessary, uploaded to the Document Server, after which the researcher is asked for the author’s version.
• UHasselt authors are personally responsible for the correctness and completeness of their publications list.
• For journal articles, the University Library applies the Belgian Open Access legislation by default, and for proceedings papers, the copyright policy of the publisher is taken into account. It is the responsibility of the University Library to correctly apply this information. However, if specific agreements have been made between the UHasselt author and the publisher about making the text available via the Internet or if certain intellectual rights must be taken into account, the UHasselt author must report this to the University Library.

After deposit, any adjustments or corrections to publications can be passed on to the University Library, which bears ultimate responsibility for this. In the event of any discussion about publication categories, the Research Coordination Office will be contacted, which will also deal with all other disputes.

 Choosing the ‘green road’ option has a lot of advantages:

• many research funds mandate making publications available in Open Access, and by depositing the author’s version in the Document Server, you comply with this mandate (especially if the funder can agree to a short embargo period);
• European policy wants to introduce Open Access as a publication standard;
• maximum archiving (long-term storage) of the own publication output, so that current and future students and researchers have access to UHasselt research;
• no barriers when publishing; free choice of journal is guaranteed;
• much cheaper than the golden road;
• no risk of "double dipping" wherein the publishers retain both the fee for the Open Access publication of an article ('APC') plus the regular subscription price for the journal;
• publication lists can be exported and integrated into websites;
• link with various other UHasselt applications to avoid double entry.

Researchers who are not so familiar with Open Access sometimes worry about the quality of Open Access journals. These doubts are often fueled by the phenomenon of 'predatory journals.' However, it's important to emphasize that the majority of Open Access journals do not engage in 'predatory' practices.

Predatory journals are journals that publish articles in Open Access and charge high publishing costs or APCs, without, however, organizing decent editorial services and peer review. In other words, they take advantage of the Open Access model solely to make money. The articles concerned are not necessarily worthless; they can contain perfectly reliable research that has unfortunately been published in a predatory journal (the publications, therefore, do not count for funding and for career evaluation).

Here are some important tips to recognize such dubious journals. To be completely sure, however, it is also advisable to consult the page with more general rules of thumb in which the tips below are included.

• Check whether the journal is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): Peer review guarantees the quality of scientific journals. All journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals use a form of peer review and thus guarantee quality control on the content.
• Check whether the publisher is a member of a recognized professional organization such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE); the International Association of Scientific, Technical, & Medical Publishers (STM); the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).
• Check whether the journal is included in databases such as Web of Science, SCimago, Scopus or - for journals in the social and human sciences - in the VABB-list of peer-reviewed journals. These websites guarantee the quality of the journal.
• Consult websites such as Quality Open Access Market (QOAM) or SciRev, which can help you choose a journal based on the experiences of researchers.
• Check whether you know one of the editors of the journal and contact this person with the question whether he/she is effectively editor of the journal and whether the journal applies proper peer review.
• Check whether you know one of the authors of recently published articles and ask him/her about experiences, especially regarding peer review.
• Consult the website Think. Check. Submit, through which you can check with a simple checklist whether a journal or publisher is reliable.

If you still have doubts despite following the tips above, please contact the University Library (eline.schoeters@uhasselt.be | +3211268122) or choose another journal.

The publisher often charges publication costs or so-called 'article processing charges' (APCs) for the Open Access publishing of your article or book. We then speak of Gold Open Access.

Please note: Hasselt University does not provide a fund with which these APCs can be paid, nor are there any deals in Flanders with publishers regarding the financing of APCs. Before you pay the costs yourself, it is, however, worth checking whether your research funder cannot (partially) accommodate them.

To circumvent the sometimes high APCs, you can choose to publish in a journal with a subscription model, and before or after publication, include the author's version of your article in the Document Server (i.e. the institutional repository of Hasselt University), after which it becomes freely available to the rest of the world, whether or not after an embargo period. In this case, we speak of Green Open Access. You do not have to worry about copyright, because Hasselt University always checks which embargo provisions apply. All of this is part of Hasselt University's Open Access policy.

• If you want to publish in a journal, consult the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
• If you want to publish (in) a book, consult the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).

A handy tool for this is Open Policy Finder. 

The Belgian Open Access legislation is a possible solution. This law gives you the right to make the author's version of your journal articles - provided they meet certain conditions - available for free in Open Access via our repository, and this after an embargo period of maximum 12 (for the human and social sciences) or 6 (for all other sciences) months. 

Interestingly, this law always overrules your publisher's embargo provisions. This makes it easier for you to comply with any open access requirements imposed by your funder. The full law can be found in Belgisch Staatsblad (Belgian Official Gazette), 2018-09-05, p. 68691, Art. 29 (pdf, 2.6 MB).

More information about this can be found here.

Of course. UHasselt authors are free to decide in which journal they wish to publish their research results. All that is expected of them is to upload the final author's version of their peer-reviewed publications to the institutional repository (Document Server).

To avoid any misunderstanding, the University Library checks the embargo provisions of the Belgian Open Access legislation (for journal articles)/the publisher (for proceedings papers) for every uploaded text. Access to the author's version in the Document Server is adjusted accordingly. So this is actually something you don't need to worry about.

Some authors fear copyright problems if they upload their work to repositories. This is incorrect. Even if you as an author do not have the exploitation rights to your work, many traditional publishers still allow self-archiving of the author's version. In any case, the University Library checks the embargo provisions of the Belgian Open Access legislation (for journal articles)/the publisher (for proceedings papers) for every uploaded text and takes into account comments about the protection of intellectual rights. Access to the author's version in the Document Server will be adjusted accordingly.

If you really cannot upload an author's version, please indicate this in the 'Comments' field in the Document Server submission form.

• After the official publication by the publisher, you upload your author's version into the Document Server. Only a limited set of metadata has to be entered.
• The University Library carries out a quality check on this data and supplements it with data from the uploaded author's version and academic databases. The University Library also tries to include the published version in the Document Server.
• You will receive an email confirming the successful inclusion of your work in the repository. Should there be any missing details, the University Library will contact you.
• As in the past, the University Library will continue to screen UHasselt publications that are recorded in the Web of Science. If necessary, those publications are still entered in the Document Server, after which the author's version is requested.
• The University Library checks the embargo provisions of the Belgian Open Access legislation (for journal articles)/the publisher (for proceedings papers) for every uploaded text and takes into account comments about the protection of intellectual rights. Access to the author's version in the Document Server will be adjusted accordingly.

• Open Policy Finder contains information about the policies of publishers, journals and funders regarding open access.
• Funders' Open Access mandates: provides an overview of various mandates from funders regarding open access.
• Plan S provides information about the initiative to make publications from Plan S-funded research immediately available in Open Access.
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides an overview of reliable, high-quality, peer-reviewed Open Access journals.
• OpenAccess.be with information about Open Access in Belgium for and by the Belgian open access community.
• ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies) is a searchable international register of open access mandates from universities, research institutions, and research funders.
• Journal Checker Tool: a web-based tool that provides researchers with guidance on how to comply with the Plan S-aligned Open Access policy of their funder when publishing in their chosen journal.

• EOSC (European Open Science Cloud): an initiative of the European Commission with the aim of developing an infrastructure to support and develop Open Science and open innovation in Europe and beyond, fuelled by a network of organizations and infrastructures from different countries. The ambition is to create a portal on which users can publish, find and reuse data, tools and services.
• COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) works on technical guidelines and standards, exchanges expertise and best practices and helps members in advocating open access practices and training.
• SPARC Europe: SPARC Europe's mission is to create change and build a better scholarly communication system for the future. Focus of the membership organisation is on policy and advocacy and training.
• University Foundation: Via the University Foundation, an application can be made for financial support to (partially) cover APCs (article processing charges), provided that it concerns publications in international peer-reviewed journals. More information can be found on the website of the University Foundation.
• OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe): a portal for European research, funded by the European Commission within FP7 and H2020.

• Open access - Dutch European presidency theme 2016 (Dutch video)
• YouTube channel of Stichting SURF and Open Access
• YouTube channel of openaccess.net
• Open Access Explained (2012)

• BASE is one of the biggest search engines for academic open access web resources.
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) covers free, full-text, quality-controlled scientific and scholarly journals.
• Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a searchable index of academic, peer-reviewed books that have been published under an Open Access license.
• ArXiv is an Open Access archive to e-prints in physics, mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology.
• BioMed Central is a publisher of peer-reviewed Open Access journals in the areas of biology, biomedicine and medicine.
• BioOne is a platform with more than 160 peer-reviewed full-text journals in the fields of biology, environmental science, ecology, ... Sixteen titles are in Open Access.
• Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a nonprofit scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of Open Access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license.
• InTech is a multidisciplinary Open Access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine.
• The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations. It supports electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide.
• The Open Knowledge Repository is the World Bank’s official Open Access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
• OAIster is a union database of millions of records representing Open Access resources, that was built by harvesting from Open Access collections worldwide using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
• OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of qualitative academic Open Access repositories.

Research impact of paywalled versus open access paper (pdf, 813 KB) - oaNumbr (1)