Open science

The transformation of scientific publications, the consolidation of institutional repositories, and the growing demand by researchers to access and share information and results make it essential to study the publishing policies of the journals where researchers publish.

The Sherpa Romeo portal will help you learn about the publishing policies of international scientific journals. Within the Spanish context, you can use the Dulcinea portal.

Below we show the different publication routes (source: URL rectorate's office).

• Gold: journals that use the gold route provide free and open access to published articles and offer the possibility of reusing and disseminating them without restrictions. Often, to publish documents in these types of journals, authors have to pay publication costs (article processing charges or APCs), and they assert the exploitation rights of the documents through Creative Commons licenses.
  
• Green: authors can deposit their publications in the URL institutional repository (DAU) (preferably), or in a thematic one. The journal's open access policy will determine which version of the article can be deposited, which may be the published version (published version) or the previous versions of articles published in subscription journals. These previous versions can be: the submitted version (also known as submitted or preprint) or the accepted version before the article is laid out (accepted or postprint). The green route may involve some type of embargo on the deposited text, ranging from 6 to 24 months. Do you want to publish an article in DAU? Contact your library! More information about DAU here.
  
• Hybrid: some journals offer authors the possibility of publishing their articles in open access through payment of an APC, or publishing the article via the traditional route (i.e., at no cost to the author but transferring the exploitation rights to the publisher). In these journals, there are both open access articles and articles that cannot be consulted unless the corresponding subscription is paid.
  
• Bronze: this refers to publications in which the text of the articles can be consulted freely, but the publisher retains all the exploitation rights of the documents. In this case, the journal is free access but not open access, because it does not allow its content to be reused.
  
• Diamond: provides free and open access to articles, and the possibility of reusing them through Creative Commons licenses. This route has no cost to the authors.
  
• Black: this refers to the illegal publication of articles with all rights reserved through platforms such as SciHub, ResearchGate, Academia, etc.

From the moment we start writing an article until it is published, our work goes through various versions. It is important to become familiar with their names and know what they mean:

• Draft / discussion paper (working draft)
  
• Preprint / submitted version (version sent to the publisher)
  
• Postprint / accepted manuscript (the authors' final version, which includes the changes proposed by the reviewers). Also called the author's final version
  
• Published version (final version published by the publisher)

Normally, large publishers tend to allow the dissemination of the postprint version in repositories; therefore, it is important that you save this version: you will get more visibility for your work without violating the terms of the publishing contracts.

The promotion of open access publishing of scientific output does not stop at the results. The publication of research data in open access in a repository is also increasingly important. URL participates in the Research Data Repository of the Catalan Open Research Area (CORA) along with the Catalan universities and the CERCA centers. You can find more information about this repository here.

To help you carry out your data management plan, the University Consortium offers the DMP (Data Management Plan) tool.

For more information, you can consult these documents:

- Good practices in research data management: organizing, naming, and versioning files, with the following infographic as additional material prepared by the CSUC Research Support Working Group

- Data Sharing: what research data is and how it can be shared. Recommendation manual for information managers, prepared by the Spanish Society for Scientific Documentation and Information (SEDIC)

The so-called transformative agreements (APC: article processing charge) allow Blanquerna teaching and research staff (PDI) and doctoral students with predoctoral grants (EPIF, FPU, Joan Oró, MSCA) to publish a limited number of open access articles free of charge.

Ramon Llull University has signed agreements with Elsevier, Emerald, Springer Nature, the American Chemical Society (ACS), and Wiley.

At this link, you can check the details of the APCs with each publisher.

Contact your library if you are interested in applying for the grants.

An online course aimed at introducing and promoting open science in the university and research fields. It provides knowledge and practical tools to facilitate the transition toward a more transparent, accessible, and collaborative scientific model.

The program addresses the principles and practices of open science—such as open access to publications, data management, and knowledge reuse—with the aim of improving the quality, visibility, and impact of research.

Aimed primarily at research and academic staff, the course helps develop key competencies and establish a common strategy among universities to advance toward a more open research ecosystem aligned with European policies.