In the repository-based open access publishing model:

• Author publishes an article in a subscription journal and shares a manuscript version via a repository (e.g. the UWA Profiles and Research Repository)
• An embargo period may be imposed by the journal publisher as outlined in the author/publisher agreement
• NHMRC and ARC preferred option
• FREE

See Where to publish an OA article below for more information on repository-based OA.

In the hybrid open access publishing model:

• Author publishes an article in a subscription journal but the publisher will make the article OA immediately if you pay an APC
• If the author chooses not to pay the APC, the article is only available to readers with access to an institutional subscription or who have purchased access
• No funders prefer this option - however, there are several "read and publish" agreements that enable you to publish OA without paying an APC. 

Also known as the post-print, the AAM is: 

• the final draft version of a scholarly paper that has been accepted for publication by a journal, after peer-review and incorporating any suggested revisions

• it typically includes all of the changes and edits that were made during the peer-review process, but has not yet been copyedited or formatted by the publisher.

It is NOT:

• the submitted version, also known as the preprint. While preprints can often be made available too, they haven't been through the peer review process and do not meet the requirements of the  ARC and NHMRC Open Access funding mandates, or the UWA Research Integrity Policy.

• the proof or the final published version that has undergone copyediting, typesetting and branding 

'Which version to upload' image courtesy of Digital Services, University of Cambridge used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The image below compares a typical AAM with the published version of the same journal article: 

So how do you know if the journal your hoping to submit to permits AAMs to be made available? And if yes, do they impose an embargo period. While journals will permit AAMs to be made available immediately upon publication, others will specific a set period of time you have to wait before you can make an AAM accessible. To find out a journal's policy, try the following:

1. Check the journal’s website for their policy on self-archiving/AAMs
2. Sherpa RoMEO is a searchable database of publisher's policies regarding the self- archiving of journal articles on the web and in Open Access repositories.
3. If you are already in the submission process, check the publishing agreement

Be sure to check a journal's policy before submitting! Especially if your funding/ grant requires immediate open access, like the NHMRC. If the journal your wanting to publishing with doesn’t permit AAMs to be made available, you can actually request the inclusion of an addendum to their publishing contract. On the Copyright and publishing webpage, there is suggested wording authors can use to request inclusion of an addendum to their publisher contract to ensure it allows self-archiving of the AAM. 

Remember! It is important that you save the AAM version during the publication process.

UWA authors are responsible for depositing copies of their Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) in accordance with the UWA Research Integrity Policy. This not only allows your research to be made freely available to anyone with an internet connection, but also takes your research to a wider audience, making it easier for other researchers to find and cite your work. Making your publication open access also enables you to comply with funder requirements, particularly if your publication arose from an ARC or NHMRC supported research. See these instructions on adding your AAMs to your publication records in the Repository. 

Institutional Repositories

Institutional repositories are digital collections of the research outputs created within a research institution. UWA's institutional repository is the UWA Profiles and Research Repository, an open platform facilitating the discoverability of UWA staff profiles, their research outputs, teaching, grants and activities. Authors usually add the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM), also known as the post-print version of an article to the repository and this is allowed by most journals.

Publications in the UWA Profiles and Research Repository are freely available to anyone with an internet connection and are discoverable through Google, Google Scholar, OAIster and Trove. Repository based open access satisfies the open access mandates of funding bodies including the ARC, NHMRC, NIH and Wellcome Trust. Find out how to contribute your research publications to the Repository.

Although most institutional repositories aim to make research outputs openly available, they usually contain a combination of OA full text, embargoes full text, and metadata only records which contain bibliographic information about the research outputs, with links to published versions. As a result, research publications included in institutional repositories may or may not be peer-reviewed. Publishers' policies on versions of outputs permitted in institutional repositories may include pre-prints, post-prints and published versions. See the UWA Profiles and Research Repository Support guide for more information on adding your publications to the Repository.

Subject Repositories

Subject repositories (also known as centralised or discipline repositories) are digital collections of the research outputs within particular subject areas or disciplines, developed specifically to meet the needs of these communities. Like Institutional Repositories, research publications included in subject repositories may or may not be peer-reviewed and may contain a mix of pre-prints, post-prints and published versions. 

Where to find institutional and subject repositories

Over the last decade many new publishers and journals have appeared hoping to attract authors who wish to publish open access. This trend was described in this article - Beall, Jeffrey, 2012,  'Predatory publishers are corrupting open access', Nature News, vol. 489, no. 179.

If you decide to publish in an OA journal, it is important to carefully evaluate the scholarly credibility of both the publisher and the journal.

Assessing OA publishers and their journals:

• Is the journal in Cabell's Scholarly Analytics? The Predatory Reports (previously known as the Blacklist) contain entries for journals that do not meet the Cabell's criteria for scholarly publishing, which may be minor, moderate or severe. More information on using Cabell's can be found in the Publish and Disseminate Research guide. 
• Is the journal listed in Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory? Ulrichsweb is a comprehensive listing of 300,000 periodical titles.
• Are articles from the journal indexed in journal databases relevant to your field, or in citation databases such as Scopus or Web of Science?
• Who is on the editorial board? You may decide to contact a member to check that their affiliation is legitimate.
• Are the articles of a scholarly standard? Are they written in a scholarly style typical of the relevant field? 
• Does the publisher have a clear peer review process and provide details about their peer review panel?
• Are the publisher’s rejection rates comparable with other publisher’s rates?
• Do web searches involving the publisher name and keywords, like complaint, scam, or fraud, retrieve results?

A useful summary of this process is provided by the Think - Check - Submit site.

For more information about publishing strategically, visit our How to Publish and Disseminate Research guide.

Check the publisher’s website against these guidelines for publishers: