The UK university consortium Jisc have consolidated their open access policy services into a single tool, Open Policy Finder. The previous iterations, Sherpa Romeo and Juliet, have been discontinued as a result of this change. Those who knew the old tools will find that the new Open Policy Finder still enables librarians and scholars to search the open scholarship policies of journals, publishers, and funding agencies.
Open Policy Finder
Though the format has changed, the site’s policy summaries are easier to understand than ever. After using the difficult-to-miss omnisearch to find a journal’s report, the most visible change is that Open Policy Finder has dropped the icons of Romeo in favor of transparent language.
Open Policy Finder uses the terms Published, Accepted, and Submitted to refer to offprints, postprints, and preprints. The new language also makes licenses and embargoes immediately evident without the use of a key for translation.
For some journals, there may be more than one policy per format depending on conditions like whether OA fees were paid, the funding institution, or the commercial/noncommercial nature of the intended reprint. The example above shows how paying OA fees reduces what would otherwise be a 12-month embargo on depositing in the university repository.
A user must open the accordion fold to see specific policies, which can get quite specific and may depend heavily on funding sources. Still, even these are listed in clear language.
For more help on understanding journal policy entries, visit Open Policy Finder’s help page.
Overall, the changes by Jisc are an improvement in making Open Access policies more transparent, and despite the new coat of paint, the Open Policy Finder remains an invaluable tool.
Open Scholarship at IU
One thing Open Policy Finder can’t identify are agreements between specific publishers and Indiana University. To learn more about how IU can assist with the costs of making your research open, visit Scholarly Communications at IU.
Leave a Reply