Making Your Publications Open Access

Queen’s University Library supports Queen’s authors with making their work open access and available to the widest possible audience.  

There are two established routes to make your publications Open Access: Self-Archive for Free (Green Open Access) and Pay to Publish (Gold Open Access).

For our available publisher discounts for open access article processing charges (APCs), please see Open Access Publishing Fees - Support.

Many funding agencies in Canada, the USA and worldwide now require authors to make publications arising from supported research freely available online. See: Meeting Tri-Agency Open Access Policy Requirements.

 

Self-Archive for Free (Green Open Access)

Deposit your peer-reviewed Accepted Author Manuscript into QSpace.

Open access can be immediate or restricted: if your publisher of choice stipulates a fixed period of time (an embargo) before the full-text of your article can be viewed freely online, the library will only make available the descriptive metadata about your work (e.g. title, author(s), and abstract) until after the embargo period has elapsed. 

You may also wish to deposit your works into a subject-based open access repository related to your discipline.

The Green Route - what this means for you

  • It’s free – there are no open access Article Processing Charges (APC) 
  • Enables you to meet the open access requirements of the Tri-Agency. See: Meeting Tri-Agency OA Requirements
  • Increased visibility and discoverability of your work through web search engines
  • Your work in QSpace will be professionally indexed and described, including careful linking to the latest and any other important versions, ensuring correct attribution and citation
  • You can track the exposure of your work such as usage statistics by city, country and other metrics
  • Ensures secure and perpetual access to your digital assets as web links, technologies or formats change.

For these reasons the Library recommends the self-archiving route.

How to Deposit to QSpace

Simply email a PDF of your Accepted Author Manuscript or Completed/Published version of record to qspace@queensu.ca. The Library's Mediated Deposit Service will take care of the rest!

Mediated Deposit to QSpace by the Library

Once the Library receives your publication for deposit to QSpace we will:

  • Check and adhere to the open access and copyright policy of your publisher (SHERPA/RoMEO provides an overview of publishers’ copyright and open access policies). We will only make the full text of your work available as per the terms of that policy, including implementing any required embargo on online access.
  • Deposit your work in to QSpace: home to Queen's University's open access research.
  • Provide guidance from QSpace to any final published version of your work (only accessible to readers with an institutional or personal subscription), ensuring correct attribution and citation.
  • Provide usage statistics on your publications.

Useful Links

Does my funder require me to make my publication Open Access? SHERPA: Juliet

Does my publisher policy enable Green Open Access and/or Gold Open Access? SHERPA: Romeo

Pay to Publish (Gold Open Access)

Publish your final, peer-reviewed Accepted Author Manuscript in an Open Access Journal. Access is free to the final published versions of articles, immediately on publication.

The publisher requires an Article Processing Charges which may include Open Access charges.

The Gold Route - what this means for you

Find an Open Access Journal

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): a comprehensive index of high quality open access journal.

DOAJ & Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

The Committee on Publication Ethics, the Directory of Open Access Journals, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and the World Association of Medical Editors have collaborated in an effort to identify 'Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing' that set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones. These principles form part of the criteria on which membership applications to the DOAJ will be evaluated.

DOAJ Seal for Open Access Journals

To highlight journals that adhere to best practices in open access publishing the DOAJ have created the 'DOAJ Seal for Open Access Journals'.  

The Seal is awarded based on the information provided in the application submitted by the publisher to have their journal indexed in the DOAJ. The qualifiers for the Seal highlight features related to accessibility, openness, discoverability, reuse and author rights and have nothing to do with the scholarly quality of the papers published. This is addressed via the journal's peer-review processes.   

Identifying and Avoiding Predatory Publishers

Open Access Publishing Fees - Support

We offer support for gold OA through transformative agreements (TAs) and/or article processing charge (APC) discounts.

For titles not covered by a transformative agreement, there are sometimes additional APC discounts available.

All of the publishers listed here comply with Tri-Agency open access requirements

NB: Queens's Authors must self-identify when submitting a manuscript to an open access journal in order to receive any discount on fees.

Please Ask Us, for more information on open access fees.

 
Available OA Discounts
Publisher Transformative Agreement (TA) Coverage Provided through TA Separate Discount through License Links
American Chemical Society (ACS) No N/A $250 USD on all ACS hybrid journals For detailed instructions on open access publishing with American Chemical Society , please visit the ACS OA Publishing Webpage.
Cambridge University Press Yes All Cambridge hybrid and gold journals N/A No link
Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) Yes

TA applies to the following five journals:

  • Biochemistry and Cell Biology,
  • Canadian Journal of Physics,
  • Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology,
  • Genome,
  • Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering
25% on all CSP Hybrid Journals not included in the TA.  No link
Elsevier ScienceDirect Yes Hybrid Only Gold Open Access journal discounts by year: 2024: 20%, 2025: 15%, 2026: 15%, 2027: 10% Link to Included and Excluded Title List (Spreadsheet File) 
ICE Publishing No N/A 20% discount on Gold and Hybrid OA journals No link
Institute of Physics Yes Most IOP hybrid and gold journals N/A Link to Included and Excluded Title List (Spreadsheet file)
Oxford Yes Hybrid Only  10% discount on Gold Journals No link 
PLOS No N/A 100% on PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine journals under the Community Action Publishing (CAP) model. No link
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) No N/A 15% discount for all RSC hybrid journals No link
SAGE Yes All SAGE Choice hybrid journals 40% discount on most Gold OA Titles List of titles not eligible for APC discount (Spreadsheet file)
Taylor & Francis No N/A 25% discount on Open Select hybrid journals No link
Wiley Yes All Wiley hybrid journals N/A Link to included Title List (Spreadsheet file)

 

For more information on publisher OA support visit the Open Access Publishing | Canadian Research Knowledge Network (crkn-rcdr.ca).

Please Ask Us, for more information on open access fees.  

 

 

Ask Us

Ask Us

For help locating resources, using the library, or to request a research consultation, try our Ask Us service.

ask us more