Ollscoil na Gaillimhe - University of Galway
AC-11: Open Access to Research

The University of Galway Research Repository provides open access to publications, including peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, working papers, reports, and other scholarly communications by University of Galway researchers.

Guidance is provided on open access publishing, how to submit etc.

Description

The University of Galway is committed to sharing the findings of its research as widely as possible to enhance its use and impact within the academic and research community and more widely within society. The University wants to ensure timely and accurate open access to publicly funded research and to meet the requirements of funder mandates in this regard. It also recognises the research publications of its staff as a major institutional asset whose long-term preservation needs to be ensured. Open access is an internationally recognised approach to the dissemination of research outputs that complements and extends the established practices and rigorous selection of publications in peer reviewed journals and elsewhere. It makes research outputs accessible free of charge online and without subscription barriers, sometimes after an agreed period has elapsed since initial publication. Advantages of open access for authors include higher levels of citation, easy discovery through global search engines such as Google and harvesting services like Rian, and long-term preservation of outputs. Wider exposure of our research enhances the University’s reputation and broadens its international recognition. Research funders achieve maximum public impact. By publishing an open access policy the University of Galway joins over 500 universities worldwide and supports the National Principles for Open Access Policy Statement Ireland. This document aligns with European University Association guidelines for institutional policies. It sets out the application of the University’s policy, the procedures for achieving open access publication and institutional preservation of publications, the responsibilities of the parties involved, and sources of assistance.

Application

This policy applies to all members of staff employed by the University of Galway. Authors of peer-reviewed articles and peer-reviewed conference papers resulting from research carried out at the University of Galway must deposit a copy in the University of Galway Research Repository. The final manuscript version should be deposited upon acceptance for publication. The deposit of copies of other publications, such as books, book chapters or reports, and datasets associated with published research, is strongly encouraged. A separate policy covers doctoral theses.

• National Principles for Open Access Policy Statement
• EUA’s Open Access checklist for universities: A practical guide on implementation

The objective is open access publication at the earliest date possible but embargoes will be applied as required, for example, to protect confidentiality, support commercialisation opportunities or meet legal obligations.

Procedures

At the time of acceptance for publication, please email the full-text file for the final manuscript version of your publication to aran@universityofgalway.ie

Upon receipt of your file, the Library will:

• Convert it to PDF to facilitate display and preservation
• Verify that the final manuscript version has been deposited
• Establish the open access publication rights specified by the publisher of the item
• Apply appropriate embargoes, copyright, and licence statements
• Upload the full-text file when claimed on IRIS and transfer the IRIS metadata to ARAN
• Make metadata publicly available immediately
• Publish the final manuscript version on open access at the earliest date possible, taking account of any restrictions placed by the publisher or authors
• Explicitly promote citation of the official, published version
• Link from your IRIS publications profile to the open access version in ARAN
• Facilitate harvesting by other repositories

IRIS, the Institutional Research Information System4, indexes most University of Galway publications, when your publication is indexed you will be prompted by email to claim it on IRIS The Library monitors claimed publications and will upload the full-text file you provided earlier For publications not automatically indexed by IRIS, you will need to add the publication details.‌ 

University of Galway is part of the consortium IReL that has a number of transformative agreements in place that enable University of Galway authors to publish Gold Open Access without paying APCs for individual articles: 
https://irel.ie/open-access/
https://libguides.library.universityofgalway.ie/openaccesspublishing

No, there is currently no such service in place that would centrally provide an OA journal platform, however, this is under consideration.

There are however discipline-specific efforts at the University of Galway, e.g. An Reiviú, a peer-reviewed online journal that is published yearly with MA students; see: http://leannteangaanreiviu.com/.

In 2023, University of Galway-affiliated authors wrote 2,410 peer-reviewed publications, and 1,444 of them were published with an open license and deposited in a designated open access repository. Data has been supplied from our library staff via the National Open Access Monitor.