Why Open Access?

About Open Access

Open access means making academic articles freely available to anyone online. Open access not only promotes equal accessibility to information but also has the ripple effects of encouraging the sharing and reuse of research outputs, provoking interdisciplinary research and innovative creation, and contributing the outputs to broader communities. By making the research outputs open access, authors will also give benefits listed below:

  • Articles can be read online all over the world for free.
  • More citations of the articles are expected.
  • More contribution of the research outputs to society is expected.
  • Authors themselves can access their own articles online anytime, anywhere.

　 Voice of Researchers: Benefit of Publishing Articles on KURENAI

To Make Your Articles Open Access

There are basically two options to make your articles open access.

Green Open Access (self-archiving)

You can deposit your articles into an institutional repository. Please note that some journals set conditions for self-archiving. Affiliates at Kyoto University can deposit their research outputs into the Kyoto University Research Information Repository (KURENAI).

Gold Open Access (open access publishing)

Many journals offer an open access option to make your articles open access immediately after the publication by paying the article processing charge (APC).

Some open access journals are called "predatory journals," which are published solely to profit from the APCs collected from authors and do not provide proper peer review. You should be cautious when choosing a journal to submit your manuscript to, as it could damage your credibility if you submit the manuscript such journals.

Reference for deciding what journal to submit your manuscript to

When you want to choose what journal to submit your manuscript to, Clarivate Journal Citation Reports provides useful information on journals.
The statistics and evaluation indices based on the citations in the articles covered by database of Web of Science are also available.

Discounts on the Article Processing Charge (APC) Publishing

Faculty members at Kyoto University may get discounts on the APC. Please confirm the below page if the discount is available before submitting your manuscript to the publisher.

Further Information

1. Background of open access

Open access developed in the late 1990s as a counter-movement against the monopoly of academic journals by major commercial publishers and rising prices (the serials crisis). The Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was established in 2002 and is known as a representative definition of open access, defines as follows.

By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) 2002
http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read

2. Domestic developments regarding the institutionalization of open access

In response to the global trend toward open access, in Japan, policy developments by the government, research funding organizations, research institutions, etc. progressed throughout the 2010s.

2-1. Policy developments
  • Infrastructure Development for Strengthening the Capacity of International Scholarly Communication (July 2012)
    https://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/shingi/toushin/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2012/10/25/1323890_4_2.pdf
    (Science Information Infrastructure Working Group, Research Envionment Infrastructure Group, Subdivision on Science, Council for Science and Technology, MEXT)

    It states that the government will respond to the promotion of open access to research outputs and will position institutional repositories as an important means of achieving open access and work to improve and enhance them.
  • Promoting openness of academic information (Summary of deliberations) (February 2016)
    https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/gijyutu/gijyutu4/036/houkoku/1368803.htm
    (Science Information Committee, Subdivision on Science, Council for Science and Technology, MEXT)

    It states that the initiative expected of universities and other institutions includes further expansion of institutional repositories as the foundation for green OA, and the formulation and publication of open access policies.
2-2. Developments of the Open Access Policy

In response to these policy documents, governments, research funding agencies, and others began developing the open access policies.

  • Regarding the enforcement of the Ministerial Ordinance amending the Degree Regulations
    https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/daigakuin/detail/1331790.htm

    In principle, those who have been acquired doctoral degrees after April 2013 are required to publish their doctoral dissertations online in an institutional repository.
  • The JSPS Policy for Implementing Open Access to Research Papers (March 2017)
    https://www.jsps.go.jp/file/storage/open_science/policy_open_access.pdf

    It has been established that research articles funded by the JSPS (e.g., KAKENHI) are subject to open access in principle by utilizing institutional repositories, etc.
  • Implementation Guidelines: JST Policy on Open Access to Research Publications and Research Data Management (enforced on April 2017; revised on April 2022)
    https://www.jst.go.jp/EN/about/openscience/guideline_openscience_en_r4.pdf

    It has been established that all research articles funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) are subject to open access in principle. Furthermore, according to the revision on April 2022, it has also been established that the research data is appropriately preserved and managed based on the Data Management Plan (DMP), and published in principle, which serves as evidence for research articles.
2-3. Developments of open access policies by academic institutions

Universities and other research institutions have also begun to develop the policies that require or recommend open access for research articles. In 2015, Kyoto University was the first university in Japan to develop the policy that made open access mandatory. As of February 2023, more than 50 universities and other research institutions have developed the open access policies.

3. Recent developments in open access

Since the end of the 2010s, efforts have been gaining momentum both in Japan and overseas to promote the open science, which adds the opening of research data to traditional open access, and to address issues that come with the spread of open access, such as the increasing burden of APCs.

3-1. Policy developments in Japan
  • Response to Issues on Scholarly Communication in Japan (Summary of deliberations) (February 2021)
    https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20230324-mxt_jyohoka01-000012731_2.pdf
    (Subcommittee on Journal Issues, Committee on Information Science and Technology, Council for Science and Technology, MEXT)

    To consider a policy to address open access journals, such as the financial burden of academic journals and the increased burden of APCs, the Subcommittee on Journal Issues was established under the Science Information Committee, Subdivision on Science, Council for Science and Technology, MEXT in 2019. After 10 deliberations, the summary of deliberations was documented, which pointed out that "in the current environment of scholarly communication, the most important challenge to address in Japan is the optimization of subscription costs and APCs, such as big deal contracts."
  • The 6th Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan, Cabinet Office (March 26th 2021)
    https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/sti_basic_plan.pdf

    Following the 5th Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan (FY2016–2020), it also states the promotion of open science and outlines its policy in "II-2.-(2) Construction of new research systems (promotion of open science and data-driven research, etc.)". Under the Integrated Innovation Strategy, which is positioned as the implementation plan for the plan, universities and research institutions are working on developing data policies.
  • Integrated Innovation Strategy 2023 (June 9th 2023)
    https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/tougosenryaku/togo2023_honbun_eiyaku.pdf

    In "I-1.-(2) Government agenda and expectations for the role of science, technology and innovation", it states the policy regarding "Promotion of open access to scholarly publications and scientific data" and that "to promote immediate open access to publicly funded scholarly publications and scientific data underlying the publications for new applications starting FY2025 of the competitive research funds."
  • National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data (February 16th 2024)
    https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/oa_240216_en.pdf

    It states that recipients (including corporations) of competitive research funds which are subject to immediate open access for new applications starting FY2025 among public funds shall be required to publish scholarly publications and scientific data funded by the applicable competitive research funds in information infrastructures such as institutional repositories immediately after publication in academic journals.
3-2. Policy developments overseas
  • Plan S (Announced in September 2018, effective from January 2021)
    https://www.coalition-s.org/

    This is an initiative by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding agencies, which aims to make research outputs completely and immediately open access. The Plan S Principles was established to enable immediate open access of research outputs in repositories. Researchers are required to grant a license equivalent to CC BY to author's final manuscripts. Furthermore, it takes initiatives such as developing the Rights Retention Strategy.
  • "Public-Access Guidance" Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) (Revisions to be announced in August 2022 and implemented by 2025)
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/ostp-issues-guidance-to-make-federally-funded-research-freely-available-without-delay/
    This URL is no longer available.

    A policy developed in 2013 required that the research outputs funded by federal agencies should be made open access within one year. In August 2022, it was announced that this policy would be updated to require immediate open access for publications and data of research funded by federal agencies.

4. References

  • Research Data Management at Kyoto University (in Japanese)
    https://www.rdm.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

    Please see here for detail on the initiatives of opening research data by Kyoto University and the Kyoto University Library Networks.
  • Japan Consortium for Open Access Repository (JPCOAR) (in Japanese)
    https://jpcoar.repo.nii.ac.jp/

    It was founded in April 2017 as an organization to build a system for disseminating knowledge through repositories, it is working to strengthen the repository community and promote open access and open science. The website provides the page entitled "Basic Documents Related to Open Science" that compiles key documents, such as policy documents, related to open science in Japan.
  • Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform (RCOS)
    https://rcos.nii.ac.jp/en/

    In July 2016, in response to the global trend towards open science, it was established within the National Institute of Informatics (NII) to develop and manage academic infrastructure. The webpage entitled "Policy Developments on Open Science" is offered that summarizes domestic and international policy developments regarding open science.
  • Current Awareness Portal (National Diet Library, Japan)
    https://current.ndl.go.jp/en/

    This is the website providing news of the industry of library and the library and information science operated by the national diet library. The latest trends both domestically and internationally on topics such as "Open Access" and "Distribution of Academic Information" are often covered.
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