Q&A - Open Access Publishing 101

Thank you for all those who participated in our Open Access Publishing 101 on Monday August 23rd! Due to time limitations, we were unfortunately unable to answer some questions from participants. Instead, the speakers of the event compiled your questions and answered them below.

Q1: Can published work be seen by Google Scholar?

Yes. Google work with publishers of scholarly information to index peer-reviewed papers, theses, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from all disciplines of research and make them searchable on Google and Google Scholar. Links within Google Scholar are available to the full version of the work, and if the work is open access then it will be fully accessible. If the work is not open access, then access may be provided by your institution if there is a subscription in place.

Q2: Choosing a journal can be tricky. I am tired of journals that provide reviewers feedback after 4 or more months. This is stressful. I do not know what strategy to use to know what journal will give feedback in at least 2 months.

Once you have selected a journal to submit to, you could contact the publisher to establish the average submission to first decision lead time.

Q3: Is Emerald Plan S compliant?

cOAlition S formed Plan S to try to increase the pace of the transition to open access for the research they fund. Emerald shares this goal and we have been supportive of open access for many years, including with our longstanding zero embargo green policy. Our new platform, Emerald Open Research, is fully Plan S compliant, and we do have a number of transformative agreements in place to help support our authors to publish openly. Due to our disciplines however, it is difficult for us to sign up to many of the commitment Plan S involved. For example, with mostly unfunded authors (indeed, less than 1% of our authors are in receipt of funding from cOAlition S signatories), and a global customer base at different places on their transition to supporting open, we have not been able to commit to increase open within our hybrid by the % amounts required by Plan S.

Whilst we do share cOAlition S aims, we don’t believe there is one path to open that fits all circumstances, and seek to remain open to all in the transition. We therefore engage a range of stakeholders, including the cOAlition, to help us support as many authors as we can in the transition, whilst ensuring we retain the diverse voices needed to solve the worlds global challenges.

Should you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to post them in the comments section or to reach out directly to our team through twitter @ELN_RLE or through Facebook @uOttawaELN.

To discuss the work of the Equitable Leadership Network, contact Stephanie Chitpin: steph.chitpin@uottawa.ca

To discuss your research and possible publishing routes with Emerald, contact Sharon Parkinson: sparkinson@emerald.com