Open science

Hanken promotes open access to scholarly publications, attends to the quality and societal impact of research, and offers training, instructions, and support for open access publishing and self-archiving, as well as for the responsible conduct of research.

The Finnish national strategy for open science in the Declaration for Open Science and Research 2020-2025 and its Policy for Open Access to Scholarly Publications state that no later than 2022, all new scientific articles and conference publications be immediately openly accessible without any embargo period.

Hanken is desirous of increasing open access publications for its societal impact and researchers should be encouraged to consider open access options and outlets when they commence their research. The options available in order of preference are gold open access, hybrid open access with discounts on article processing charges (APCs), and non-embargoed self-archiving/green open access. However, the choice of publication venue is up to the researcher. Hanken urges researchers to evaluate the integrity and reputation of the publication channel to which they submit manuscripts and refrain from submitting to predatory or pseudo journals.

The infrastructure for self-archiving publications at Hanken has been outsourced and is based on generally accepted solutions. Hanken’s institutional repository DHanken uses permanent links (handles) and OAI-PMH to disseminate metadata. The institutional repository is integrated with the research database Haris, which is used for the registration and administration of research qualifications. The openness of Hanken’s publications is managed and overseen systematically and relevant information is reported to the National Research Information Hub and Juuli portal.

Researchers may upload a legitimate copy of articles to the research database Haris. The copy is preferably a version of record (VoR) or a post-print version. Comprehensive self-archiving of the publications in Haris ensures that the school’s research outputs and activities are documented, permanently preserved and available for further use. Hanken urges researchers to investigate the conditions of the publishing agreements and publishers’ copyright guidelines, author sharing and reusing permissions, as well as research data policies. Hanken does not recommend publishing in a publication channel in which the publisher refuses to give authors reuse and self-archiving permissions despite negotiations.[1] Researchers who opt for green open access publishing should note if there is an embargo period that is imposed by the target publisher and hinders immediate open access to the self-archived copy uploaded in Haris.

Hybrid publishing is an alternative when it expedites the transition to fully open publishing as part of a transformative agreement which changes the contract between a subscriber (e.g., a university library) and a publisher from a subscription model to an open access one. As a member of the FinELib consortium, Hanken aims to secure open access agreements or discounts on article processing charges (APCs) with publishers. Most of FinElib’s agreements with publishers are Plan S compliant transformative agreements. Hanken Library updates the information on Discounts on APCs to publish open access in the LibGuide on Open access.

Since 2020, Hanken has allocated a central fund for open access publishing fees for researchers and defined criteria for fund granting when a researcher’s target journal is not included in the journal lists covered by the FinElib agreements with publishers. Financial support for book processing charges (BPCs) is also provided for publishing monographs open access. See Hanken’s central fund for open access publishing fees in the LibGuide on Open access.

Hanken monitors the development of open access publishing and of total publishing fees including APCs, BPCs, submission fees and production-related fees such as colour image or figure charges. Hanken Library registers publishing payment information in Haris. The information on publishing fees compiled in Haris is used to report cost data to the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Final theses (master’s and licentiate theses and doctoral dissertations) are public documents (Act on the Openness of Government Activities 1999/621) that Hanken is obliged to archive. With the permission of the author or authors, theses can be published as open access versions in Hanken’s digital repository DHanken. Final theses with restricted use can be sent to readers who ask for them. Doctoral candidates follow the procedures and instructions on the publishing of theses and dissertations.

When researchers choose licence terms, it is recommended to make sure that the further use of scholarly publications is not unnecessarily limited, and that the terms of use shall be clearly indicated. Hanken recommends the standard, machine-readable CC BY 4.0 licence which is one of six Creative Commons licences. The licence recommendation also applies to theses.

      Picture: Open access logo.

Open access (OA) means that research publications are made freely accessible on the internet in digital form, which promotes the dissemination of research results both within the scientific community and to the public at large. Readers can read, use, copy, print, and link to the OA publications, all free of charge. There are three main types of open access publishing:

• Gold open access: An article is published and made freely accessible in a digital form on the publisher’s website immediately upon publication, in a journal that does not receive subscription fees from the readers, which means that all articles in the journal are freely available immediately upon publication. Often a publishing fee (article processing charge, APC) is charged to cover the administrative costs of the journal. Gold open access publishing may also be free of charge.

• Hybrid open access: The article is published and made openly available immediately upon publication after the payment of an article processing charge (APC), in a subscription-based journal where some articles are published freely available and other contents are available after the payment of a subscription fee.

• Green open access (also called self-archiving or parallel publishing): A version of the article is self-archived in a repository, usually an institutional repository or a subject-based repository, before, after or alongside the publication of the article. Green open access publishing is free of charge, but access to this article is often delayed by an embargo period.

When self-archiving, it is important to check the publisher’s policy for open access, which version may be archived, and if there is an embargo for self-archiving. The self-archived versions may be:

• pre-print: submitted manuscript, author’s non-peer-reviewed draft.
• post-print: author's accepted manuscript (AAM), final draft, post-review, the refereed manuscript, the author’s final version of the peer-reviewed article accepted for publication but not yet laid out for publication by the publisher.
• Proof: often partly with the layout of the journal.
• Version of Record (VoR): the publisher’s final PDF, the final published version with the layout of the journal.

Hanken researchers are entitled to different open access opportunities, for example:

• Using the Discounts on APCs to publish hybrid open access.
• Applying for Hanken’s central fund for open access publication fees to cover an APC in a gold or hybrid open access journal or BPC for a monograph.
• Self-archiving a legitimate copy of your publication into Haris and preserving it in Hanken’s institutional repository DHanken. Note that there may be an embargo period that hinders immediate open access to the self-archived copy uploaded in Haris. See How to self-archive at Hanken in the LibGuide on Open access.

Researchers select the publication channels which they consider as the most suitable ones in terms of quality and effectiveness:

• The openness of the publication (gold, hybrid and green open access without embargoes) is a significant factor in selecting a publication channel.
• The authors of the publication are encouraged to withhold the rights to the publication in order to be able to use it in the future. It is not recommended to publish in a publication channel in which the publisher refuses to give authors reuse and self-archiving permission.
• Further use of the publication is not unnecessarily limited and the terms of use shall be clearly indicated. It is recommended to use the CC BY 4.0 licence which is one of six Creative Commons licences.

Information on OA is available in Hanken's LibGuide on Open access.

• Open access to scholarly publications – National policy and executive plan by the research community in Finland for 2020–2025: Policy component for open access to journal and conference articles. Open Science Coordination in Finland, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) (2019).
• Directory of Open Access Journal: Contains more than 10,000 open access peer-reviewed journals covering all areas of science.

• Publication Forum: The national Publication Forum (in Finnish Julkaisufoorumi, Jufo) divides academic publication channels (journals, series, conference publications, book publishers) into three levels (1 = basic; 2 = leading; 3 = top). The evaluation is performed by 23 discipline-specific expert panels composed of about 200 distinguished Finnish or Finland-based scholars.

• Journal assessment in Hanken's LibGuide on Bibliometrics.