Research Hub

Green Open Access is the process of placing a copy of an already published article in a research/institutional repository or personal web page where it can be freely accessed.  This is also referred to as self-archiving.

Publisher’s policies on self-archiving can be located using the Sherpa Romeo database.  Typically they will require an embargo – a period of time between when the article is published and when it is permitted to self-archive.  They may also specify that is should be a pre –print (before peer review) or a post print (after peer review).

There is no cost to the author for Green Open Access. 

Still unsure about the benfits of Green Open Access? Here are the five best arguements for getting involved ...

1. Green Open Access can form part of your plan for dissemination of your research in compliance with commitments to funders and sponsors.
2. Green Open Access increases the number of downloads, readers and citations of your paper especially among ambulance service researches, staff and paramedics.
3. amber showcases your work in an appropriate context with other research on ambulance services.  amber has now over 1000 papers with over 1.5K hits each month.
4. Green Open Access gives you a persistent link (URL) to enable you to link to your research from your research profiles, personal web pages and bibliographies.
5. Green Open Access provides you with an additional metric to measure the impact of your research.

If you would like to add your full text to amber please contact the library.  We will check the publishers policies and copyright to see that it comforms to their requirements before uploading.  

Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.