The Loi pour une République Numérique (Digital Republic Act, No. 2016-1321) which came into effect on 7 October concerns researchers directly, since it covers the self-archiving of publications. Previously, the right for researchers to deposit their publications in an open archive depended very much on publishers’ policy, which was set out in publishing contracts. Thanks to the Article 30 of the law, the situation is now much simpler. In practical terms, the 4 key points to retain are as follows:

1. Article 30 only applies to journal articles, and the possibility of self-archiving applies only to the postprint (the final accepted version );

2. The published article must be the product of research at least half funded by grants from the state, territorial authorities or public institutions, by subsidies from national funding agencies or by European Union funds, and the researchers concerned must be exercising in France.

3. If the publisher of a journal imposes an embargo for the postprint, the law takes precedence and allows to reduce the embargo period systematically to 6 months for STEM and 12 months for SSH;

4. Once the publisher has itself placed the article in Open Access on its own, the author can deposit the postprint without further delay. Of course, this deposit is not essential to the sharing of science, but it is an additional guarantee of continuing access to the file;

For more information relevant to the legality of the deposit, please see Hal tools’ page of the HAL-URCA open repository or contact us to the following address hal-contact@univ-reims.fr

The purpose of the Éditions et Presses universitaires de Reims is to publish scientific books and journals written or coordinated by teachers and researchers of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne.
The editorial policy is defined by the collection and journal directors, whose work is supported by reading committees and external experts (national and international as part of an evaluation system). Non-collection projects are submitted to the editorial committee for approval.
The ÉPURE are a unit within the university library.

Discover the ÉPURE website

Some bogus publishing houses deviate from the ‘author pays’ principle by dangling the prospect of Open Access publication in exchange for payment of substantial processing charges (Article Processing Charges or APCs), without providing the seriousness and guarantees of genuine editorial work (preparation of copy, typesetting, peer review, dissemination, etc.).

When should you be alerted? When you are approached directly by a publisher (unsolicited emails):

• who claims to publish your work in a very short space of time ;
• whose good ethical or editorial practices you question;
• that does not deal with your areas of research.

The phenomenon of fake conferences also exists!

How can you prevent it?

The University of Liège has developed a tool that allows researchers to use a questionnaire to assess the degree of authenticity of Open Access journals that use APC: Compass to publish.

Many publishers now offer journals in their catalogue that are wholly or partially open access for readers. The business model for these journals is based on the payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs) by the author, their laboratory or their institution. APCs can represent a significant item of expenditure in institutions' budgets.

The COUPERIN consortium, which is responsible for negotiating national access licences, has obtained substantial discounts on APCs from certain publishers, as part of so-called transforming agreements, for institutions that have taken out a subscription. To find out more, click here.

If you have any questions about discounts on APCs under national licences, please write to: bu-chercheurs@univ-reims.fr.

Developed and maintained by the University of Bielefeld and part of the European drive for cost transparency, the OpenAPC platform collects and disseminates institutions' APC expenditure.

URCA's APC data can be viewed here.

The URCA Charter of Good Publication Practices comes into force on 1 January 2024.

Download the Charter

If the publisher's PDF file is published under a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, etc.), you can deposit this version in HAL.
The mention of the licence with the CC logo can be found either directly on the PDF itself (at the bottom of the page, at the end of the article or in a margin), or on the article's web page (at the bottom of the page).
If you have the right to upload the publisher PDF, go directly to step 4; if not, go to step 2.

If you do not have the right to submit the Publisher PDF (Published Version) of your article, the Law for a Digital Republic of 7 October 2016 authorises you to submit the post-print (or AAM = author's accepted manuscript) within a maximum period of 6 months for STEM and 12 months for SSH, regardless of the contract signed with the publisher.
If you have the post-print of your publication, go directly to step 4. If you have to meet a deadline of 6 or 12 months, you can set the embargo period. By making the immediate deposit with embargo, you make the file accessible to reprint requests for the duration of the embargo.

If you no longer have the post-print, ask your co-authors or the corresponding author, or go through the procedure accessible from the Direct2AAM site: OpenAccess Button created Direct2AAM to help you find your manuscript (AAM) from the submission systems of the main scientific journals.
If you have been able to retrieve it, go on to step 4. If not, you will unfortunately not be able to deposit your file, but don't forget to keep your post-print for the future.

Once you have retrieved your files, make sure you have obtained the agreement of your co-authors to deposit them, also check that the file has not already been deposited, then deposit them directly into HAL using your depositor account.

If you have any doubts about the version you can deposit, send us your file by email to hal-contact@univ-reims.fr

The DOI refers towards the site of the editor, in other words a site which can one day disappear. Depositing the article in HAL ensures that it is archived and can be accessed for a long time.

You can check publishers' deposit policies using two main tools:

• for publishers of international scientific journals [STEM], verification is carried out using Sherpa Romeo
• or French-language academic journals in the social sciences and humanities, the review site is Mir@bel.

The post-print is the proofread version of your article but without the publisher's layout (logo, name of the journal, pagination, etc.). It is the last author's version before publication. The post-print can also be called post-refereeing = Final draft = author accepted manuscript (AAM) = Final Accepted Manuscript = Just Accepted Manuscript...

This is the version that the loi pour une République numérique allows to be deposited within 6 or 12 months if the publisher objects to the deposit. It is not possible to deposit in HAL files containing layout elements that are the property of the publisher.

The embargo applies from the date of online publication by the publisher. You can make the deposit immediately and apply an embargo period at the end of which the full text will be ‘released’ and made public. By making an immediate deposit with embargo, you make the file accessible to reprint requests for the duration of the embargo.

Chapters published in a collective work and contributions to conference proceedings do not fall within the scope of the loi pour une République numérique of October 2016, which only concerns articles published in academic journals. To find out whether you can deposit a chapter published in a collective work or a contribution to conference proceedings, please refer to the contract signed with the publisher or contact them. You can consult the deposit policies of the main publishers from this list.