Why you still need the Green route to open access
Since major agreements that include a publish element emerged around 10 years ago the perception has developed that open access in hybrid journals is ‘ideally’ handled on the Gold route. Alongside this, a belief has developed that Green open access is secondary or less ‘proper’, as if that version of access implies the article, despite being peer reviewed, is somehow less complete or fully published.
This is understandable: the OA workflow integrated into publisher systems means author choice of licence and allocation of costs to an institutional agreement are often seamless, as well as the clear appeal of the open access version of record with clear licensing.
However, institutional agreements have limitations: they are not automatic but conditional. Eligibility is affected by several factors:
- Journal inclusion in the agreement
- Article type classification (research article, review article, etc.) and its inclusion in the agreement
- At St Andrews the corresponding author must be a current member of staff or current student at the point of acceptance
- Sometimes the timing may affect eligibility, e.g. during the transition period when an agreement is being renewed or renegotiated.
If any of these criteria are not met, the Gold open access workflow may not trigger, even where authors reasonably expect their article to be covered.
As these systems involve a level of uncertainty and Gold publishing under an agreement is not guaranteed, an alternative route to meeting requirements remains important when publishing in hybrid journals.
Another path to open access
For major publishers the Green route can be achieved quickly by depositing the author accepted manuscript in Pure in the usual way.
Doing this meets the University requirements and those of major funders such as UKRI and Wellcome. The University’s rights retention strategy means that, in most case, the resulting OA achieved is equivalent to Gold with zero embargo on publication and a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY). This removes dependence on funding availability and publisher workflows.
This provides a reliable fallback position where a Gold option can’t go ahead for any reason – agreement changes, article classification decisions, or publisher delays or system issues.
The publisher Gold option is attractive to authors for several reasons, including the presentation and legibility of the version of record. The publisher pdf is also usually easily visible and discoverable. However, this is best understood as valuable but conditional.
In practice it is helpful to view Gold and Green as complementary, parallel options – use Gold where it works, use Green where it is needed or preferred. If there is a funder requirement to include a rights retention statement, include one in your submitted manuscript. If the Gold option is available, the inclusion of the statement doesn’t affect selecting Gold. If there is no funder requirement St Andrews authors don’t need to include a rights retention statement.
In hybrid publishing open access should not be tied to a single pathway. Green OA ensures continuity of access, meets policy requirements, and is usually quicker and less costly than the Gold option.
For help and support contact [email protected].