Academic publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) has announced that from April 1, 2013 Oxford journals will be compliant with the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Wellcome Trust policies on open access (OA). OUP claims to be mission-driven to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of high-quality research.
The publisher embraces both 'gold' and 'green' OA publishing to support this mission. It is reportedly committed to work with the society partners to support sustainable OA for each community, and has consulted with each of its partners to decide on the best route to compliance for each journal.
OUP's OA programme, Oxford Open, dates back to 2004. It publishes 13 fully OA titles, and over 120 'hybrid' titles. In total through these two channels OUP published over 3,200 open access papers in 2012. With the new funding policies in place, it wants to ensure it meets the needs of its authors and will be extending OA options to virtually all its journals.
The RCUK's OA policy requires authors to comply either by publishing 'gold' OA using a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY), or by 'green' OA after embargo periods specified by the RCUK and laid out in the Publishers' Association flow chart.
Authors will be able to comply via both routes with OUP. Under Gold OA, the vast majority of its titles will offer authors the option of making their paper immediately available by payment of an APC (Article Processing Charge). Authors will be able to choose between various Creative Commons licences, including CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, and CC-BY-NC-ND. The exact choice of licences will be dependent on individual journal policy.
The another route is Green OA, wherein the embargo periods for OUP journals will largely comply with the RCUK/Wellcome policies, as laid out in the RCUK and government endorsed flow chart.
