Open access

The peer-reviewed Author Accepted Manuscript is your intellectual creation. It is a valuable UNSW asset. Don’t give it away.

Increasingly journal publishers do allow authors to make a version of their work Open Access via an institutional repository however this is not universal. If the publisher does not allow you to make a peer reviewed version of your work immediately openly accessible with a CC-BY licence. UNSW researchers must protect their author rights to deposit their Author Accepted Manuscript in UNSWorks.

The UNSW Rights Retention Statement is a tool for researchers to use with publishers to protect their rights. You can find the text of the statement within the UNSW Open Access Policy.

Before submission:

• When deciding on a publisher review the self archiving policy of the journal. Read the author and open access pages carefully. They should list any policies about author self-archiving and/or authors making a version of their work available via an institutional repository. You can also find open access policy information using Open Policy Finder (formerly Sherpa services).

At submission:

• Include a rights retention statement on your submitted manuscript. This statement is often included in the funder and acknowledgements section.
• UNSW Rights Retention Statement: “This research was produced in whole or part by UNSW Sydney researchers and is subject to the UNSW Intellectual property policy. For the purposes of Open Access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission”.
• Alternately use any funder mandated rights retention text e.g. NHMRC.

On acceptance:

• Keep a copy of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)
• Check the article proofs to see that the rights retention statement has been included
• Read the publishing agreement before you sign it and keep a copy for your records.

On publication:

• If a rights retention statement is included the published version you can deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to UNSWorks without embargo.

If your journal does not allow your work to be shared in an institutional repository and you haven’t retained your rights, you will not be able to upload your work in UNSWorks. For more information on author rights retention, contact UNSW Open Access Publishing.