Helsingin yliopisto
Self-archiving of articles published in the open access journals will continue to be done by the library. However, researchers may receive an email reminder due to the fact that the automatic identification of publication type is not always accurate. This blog article explains why OA articles are deposited in a digital repository (Helda) and how the library supports researchers in self-archiving.
(Tämä artikkeli on saatavilla myös suomeksi.)
Self-archiving of research publications offers a wide range of benefits, such as free alternative to open access (OA) publishing, better visibility of the publications (for example in search engines) and increased impact (read more about the benefits). University of Helsinki’s Principles of open publishing require self-archiving of scientific articles as well as licentiate theses and dissertations – and, if possible, also scientific monographs.
Articles published in open access journals (gold OA) are also self-archived in the UH’s digital repository Helda. This ensures long-term preservation and permanent openness of publications, for example in cases when the OA journal has ceased to exist. In addition, publications from research projects that have received EU ERC funding, for example, are required to be openly accessible in the repository, even if the original publishing channel is open. Self-archiving also supports data mining: texts on a specific topic can be retrieved from large masses of text, such as the EU countries’ common OpenAIRE database, where also Helda’s publications are harvested.
If necessary, the library takes care of self-archiving in Tuhat research information system on behalf of researchers. For OA publications, self-archiving is done routinely by the library. The persistent identifier of the publication (e.g. DOI) is also stored in Tuhat, and it allows access to the original publication also in Helda.
The library regularly sends email reminders to UH researchers asking for researchers to self-archive peer-reviewed research publications that are missing from Tuhat (publication types A1–A4) or to send the files to the library’s service address (openaccess@helsinki.fi).
The aim is to exclude OA publications from these reminders sent by the library. However, there are many types of publications and not all open publications can be automatically identified and excluded. As a result, the library may send unnecessary reminders about OA publications that are usually self-archived by the library. The researcher can ignore these reminders or notify the library that this is an OA publication.