Article quota used up: you have alternatives

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Towards the end of the year, the article allocation of our Read&Publish agreements has sometimes been reached. Is there an alternative way of publishing my publication in Open Access?

The University Library and the central library (Zentralbibliothek) have agreed to Read&Publish agreements with many publishers, which enable the researcher of the University of Zurich to publish Open Access articles free of charge. Some publishers have an annual cap on the number of articles that can be published Open Access. After the article quota has been reached, article fees for Open Access are no longer covered by the agreement and will be invoiced to the authors. We provide the information in each case on our Open Access website and on our news channels.

Even if the quota is reached there are still alternatives for Open Access publishing

Articles in hybrid journals

For articles published in traditional subscription journals (hybrid journals), we recommend that you publish via the green Open Access route and archive the accepted manuscript of the paper on the institutional repository ZORA. After an embargo period, the accepted manuscript can be made freely available worldwide in ZORA as a second publication free of charge. The database SHERPA/RoMEO informs about the conditions of green Open Access.

Articles in Gold Open Access journals

The UZH Publication Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences covers publication costs of a maximum of CHF 2000.- per articles published in Gold Open Access journals and which meet the other funding conditions.

The Central Library supports Open Access articles on 20th century social and intellectual history with the Willy Bretscher Fund. Detailed information and publication rules can be found on the webpage of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich

In case of a research funding

Most research funders have policies in place that require grant holders to make any resulting publications Open Access. The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is listed as an example:

Articles in Gold Open Access Journals

The SNSF requires that all scientific papers published in journals that were fully or partially (≥ 50%) funded by SNSF grants are published Open Access. If funding is available from the Swiss National Science Foundation, it provides funds to cover publication costs in Gold Open Access journals. Further information on the funding conditions and how the submission works can be found here. Gold Open Access journals can be found via the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Open access policies from other funders can be checked using the Sherpa Juliet database.

Articles in hybrid journals

The accepted manuscript of an article published in a subscription-based journal can be deposited in ZORA as a second publication and made it freely available. The SNSF requires that articles must be made available no later than 6 months after the original publication date.

The SHERPA/RoMEO directory can be used to check whether the selected journal offers a compliant embargo period.

If the publisher proposes an exceeded embargo period than the regulation issued by the research funder, it is recommended to get in touch with the publisher to ensure that the embargo period is respected and to allow to publish the accepted manuscript after 6 months. For this purpose, the SNSF has prepared guidelines for meeting the OA requirement of the SNSF

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Open Science Services team via oa@ub.uzh.ch