Depending on the source of funding for your research, you may be expected to comply with more than one open access policy or mandate. In order to insure you're adhering to the policies, we recommend checking the publisher's options for open access. SFU librarians are here to help with everything from selecting a publisher to negotiating your rights to depositing your work in Summit, so don't hesitate to get a hold of us!

Funding mandates for open access

If your research is funded by one of the federal funding agencies, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), you are required to follow the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. This policy requires you to make your work openly available within 12 months of publication. There are two options for adhering to the policy:

1. Publish with an open access journal

Choosing an open access journal for your publication is one way to meet this requirement in a single step. Follow our steps for assessing a publisher, journal, or conference to make sure you're selecting a high-quality journal. You can apply for additional research funding to cover the Article Processing Charges frequently charged by open access publishers. Alternatively, you can apply to SFU's Central Open Access Fund for help with the costs.

2. Self-archive in a repository

If you choose a non-open access journal, you need to make sure you are allowed to archive your work within 12 months in an open access repository, such as Summit, SFU's institutional repository. The agreement you are asked to sign with the publisher is the best place to check for information about self-archiving your work. Another tool you can use is Sherpa RoMEO, which will tell you roughly what is allowed for specific journals. You may only be allowed to deposit a specific version of your paper, depending on the agreement you sign with the publisher. Contact your subject librarian or a Digital Scholarship Librarian for help with determining which version of your paper you can self archive.

Some journals place a longer embargo on the work they publish, meaning you can't archive the work until the embargo has ended. In this case you can include an author addendum with your publisher agreement to negotiate your right to archive the work within 12 months, or choose a different publisher with a shorter embargo.

SFU's open access policy

SFU's open access policy asks that SFU authors make their work openly available by depositing it in Summit upon publication, but there is no time limit for the work to be made available. This means that you can place your work in Summit even if it has a longer embargo, as long as the publisher allows self-archiving in general. Simply upload your work, include the embargo information, and SFU library will take care of the embargo period for you, making your work openly available once the period has passed.