Share your research

University of Manchester researchers and Postgraduate research students are required to share journal articles and peer-reviewed conference proceedings under the institutional Publications Policy. Making these outputs Open Access (OA) is also required by Research England in order for papers to be eligible for submission to the REF, and many research funders require OA for these outputs too. Use the Library deposit form in the Open Access Gateway to submit your papers for deposit to ensure they are made OA as required.

You can find out more about these requirements on our policies page. 

Sharing the data that supports your research findings helps increase reproducibility, facilitates new collaborations, and is also mandated by many research funders and journals.

When preparing your dataset to be shared it is important to check your funders’ data sharing requirements and choose an appropriate repository. Consider whether your data needs to be restricted or embargoed (e.g,. due to containing personal information), make sure you choose an appropriate licence and add a data access statement to your paper.

Take a look at the research data management webpages for more information on sharing data and recording it in Pure.

Can I share it?

A preprint is a complete manuscript that has been made public but has not yet been published in a traditional scholarly journal. Preprints have typically not been peer reviewed and could be a commentary or summary of negative results as well as a traditional journal article. Preprint servers will not generally accept clinical papers - it's considered irresponsible to share these prior to peer review due to the potential negative impact on health.

Check the policy of the journal you are hoping to publish in to see if they accept for submission papers which have previously been shared as preprints. If you are unsure of the journal’s preprint policy please contact the Library:

Contact

• uml.openaccess@manchester.ac.uk

How do I share it?

To share your preprint you first need to identify an appropriate preprint server; either one for your discipline or a generic platform, such as PeerJ Preprints or Zenodo. The following are some of the most popular preprint servers for different disciplines:

• arXiv – Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science
• bioRxiv – Biology
• ChemRxiv – Chemistry
• CORE – Humanities
• PsyRxiv – Psychological Sciences
• RePeC – Economics
• SocArXiv or SSRN – Social Sciences

Once you have decided on your preprint server you need to get permission from all authors to post the preprint, prepare your manuscript (usually as a PDF or LaTeX file for arXiv), write an abstract, choose your license and upload your preprint.

If your manuscript goes on to be formally published by a journal don't forget to go back and link your preprint to the final version of your paper.

Can I share it?

Currently there is no institutional or national mandate for authors to make book chapters Open Access (OA). There is a requirement for authors whose work acknowledges funding from the Wellcome Trust to make book chapters OA, and authors can apply for funding from the Trust to cover the cost of Gold OA. If you’re interested in Gold for your book chapter and are not Wellcome Trust-funded, contact the Open Access team to discuss your options.

Publisher policies for sharing book chapters as Green OA tend to be less well-established than those for other research outputs like journal articles, and as there are fewer requirements for authors to openly share this type of output, some publishers do not allow sharing of book chapters. If you are unclear what your publisher allows you to do with your book chapter, contact the Open Access team.

How do I share it?

If your publisher allows you to share your book chapter, there are a few things to consider:

• Do I need to request permission to share?
• What version of my chapter can I share?
• Can I share my chapter immediately or is an embargo required?

If you're unsure on any of these points, contact the Library’s Open Access team for advice.

Once you’re clear on the version of your chapter you’re able to share, and any embargo requirements, you can create a record for your chapter in Pure. The Pure support website provides guidance on depositing research outputs to Pure: see Adding/viewing content on the User Guides page.

If you prefer, you can use the Library deposit form in the Open Access Gateway to submit your book chapter manuscript; the Library will create a Pure record for the chapter on your behalf. Once any embargo has elapsed, your book chapter will be openly available via the University’s Research Explorer.

Contact us

• Email: uml.openaccess@manchester.ac.uk 
• Tel: +44(0)161 306 1517 (internal: x61517)

Can I share it?

Most major academic publishers now offer a Gold Open Access (OA) option for monographs. Over recent years a number of Gold Open Access monograph publishers have launched. The cost of Gold OA for monographs ranges between £5000 and £12,000 (excluding VAT).

It’s less common for publishers to allow authors to share a copy of their monograph online as Green OA. If you're unclear on whether your publisher allows you to share a copy of your manuscript contact the Library Open Access team for advice.

How do I share it?

How you can share your monograph depends on whether it is published as Gold OA. If so, you can share the final published version in Pure.

If your monograph isn’t published as Gold OA but your publisher allows you to share the manuscript, there are a few things to consider:

• Do I need to request permission to share?
• What version can I share?
• Can I share it immediately or is an embargo required?

It you’re unsure on any of these points, contact the Library’s Open Access team for advice.

Once you’re clear on the version you’re able to share, and any embargo requirements, create a record for your monograph in Pure (see guidance on Adding/viewing content on the Pure User Guides page). Once any embargo has elapsed, your monograph will be openly available via the University’s Research Explorer.

Contact us

• Email: uml.openaccess@manchester.ac.uk 

Can I share it?

A growing proportion of research relies on software written for that research. Sharing this software (in the form of source code or scripts) allows others to better understand your research and potentially build on the work you have done.

If you have created software from scratch and do not plan on commercialising, sharing it publicly could improve the impact of the work you do. If you have built on others’ software, you will need to check the licence the original software was shared under to see if you can release your software. The licence applied to the original software may only allow you to release your software under certain conditions so it is worth checking carefully.

Before sharing any code, it’s important to ensure that you either own the Intellectual Property (IP) or have permission from the IP owner.

How do I share it?

First you will need to consider when you want to share your software. Some researchers work on their software openly during their project using tools such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, whilst others choose only to release their software publicly on these platforms at the end of the project. Whenever you share your software, remember to include documentation to allow new users to be able to get set up and running. It’s very important to apply a suitable license appropriate for the rights you are giving others to use and build upon the software, you can get guidance on doing this at https://choosealicense.com/. 

If you would like your software to be in a more citable format, consider platforms such as Zenodo which has a useful integration with GitHub and allows you to assign a DOI to a particular version of your software. You may want to include a CITATION.txt file in the base directory of your software repository describing how to reference your source code and how you want your work cited, and a README so people can understand the structure of the software and what files they need to read.

As well as sharing the software publicly it is often a good idea to publish a software paper to ensure you get appropriate credit for your software. The Software Sustainability Institute has created a list of journals that accept software papers.

Can I share it?

There’s no requirement to share these output types, but it can be useful to do so to facilitate collaboration and document your research.

Peer-reviewed conference proceedings with an ISSN fall in-cope of Research England’s Open Access policy linked to the REF. See My journal article or peer reviewed conference proceedings for more information on sharing this type of output.

How do I share it?

You can create a record for most output types in Pure: see guidance on Adding/viewing content on the Pure User Guides page. Once deposited, outputs will be openly available via the University’s Research Explorer.