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REF2021 Open Access logicREF2021 Open Access logic

About this page

The following describes the logic implemented to determine the REF2021 Open Access Status Flag for Research Outputs.

Introduction

The logic for determining the REF2021 Open Access Status Flag has been updated to reflect the confirmed final REF OA policy, with the first 2 years of the policy monitoring against Published date, and the remaining years monitoring against Acceptance date.

In Pure we calculate the Suggested open access compliance status based on the following rules. The suggestion can be overwritten in the dropdown REF Open Access Compliance Status. All Open Access compliance is calculated on the Research Output and copied as read-only on the related REF2

Definitions

Term	Shown at location	Logic
Eligible version		Document version = Author final version (postprint) OR Proof OR Publisher version
Earliest deposit date	REF2 editor window > Metadata > Open access compliance status	Derived field, from either document OR link, earliest of: author postprint, OR proof, OR publisher PDF
Earliest access date	REF2 editor window > Metadata > Open access compliance status	Derived field, from document OR link OR DOI, earliest of: author postprint, OR proof, OR publisher PDF Published date: Date of acceptance is April 2016 to 31 March 2018 (inclusive) - full acceptance date must be provided in Pure Note: In Pure, this is calculated as the date at which Publication status is set to ePub ahead of print, or if ePub ahead of print is is empty, uses the published date. Acceptance date: Date of acceptance is 1 April 2018 to 31 December 2020 (inclusive) - full acceptance date must be provided in Pure Note: In Pure, this is calculated as the date at which Publication status is set to Accepted/In press.
Date output first became available in the public domain	REF2 editor window > Metadata > Open access compliance status	Earliest of (via document or link): publication date publisher's early online date eligible document version earliest access date (i.e. Author Accepted Manuscript, Proof, or Publisher's version)

Changes that might effect access date

If you make changes to the above fields, clicking on 'refreshing will update the access date on the electronic versions based on the following rules:

If public access to the file is closed :

The date is set to null, i.e. is not set

If public access to the files is open or embargoed:

The access date will be the embargo end date if the file is under embargo, otherwise
the access will be the creation date of the electronic version

When do open access rules apply?

The REF OA status flag only applies to the following outputs, and therefore only appears for (both criteria must be met):

Research outputs with the following types:

Contribution to journal
Contribution to specialist publication

Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding > Conference contribution (Note: Compliance is monitored for all Conference contributions, regardless of whether there is an ISSN, because at the time of acceptance, it may not be known whether there is an ISSN. This rule will be changed in 5.17.1. Afterwards we are only looking at compliance on contributions to books that also has an ISSN Number.

Needs a full acceptance date, that is after 1st of April 2016

REF OA Compliance Statuses

There are five separate REF OA Compliance Statuses, defined below:

REF OA Status	Color	Description
Indeterminate	White	No deposit or access yet, but still within eligibility window (i.e. within 3 months of acceptance/publication date (depending on policy phase) and/or within 1 month of deposit date / embargo end date) AND REF exception is ‘Not set’ No deposit or access yet, but still within eligibility window (i.e. within 3 months of acceptance/publication date (depending on policy phase) OR No access yet made, but still within 1 month of Earliest deposit date / Embargo end date AND REF exception is ‘Not set’
Compliant	Green	OA status OK (as per REF OA policy) OR REF exception has been input (i.e. any value other than ‘Not set’ or ‘No exception’) Earliest deposit date of eligible version is within 3 months of Acceptance/Publication date (depending on policy phase) AND Earliest access date to eligible version is within 1 month of Deposit date OR within 1 month of Embargo end date OR REF exception is NOT EQUAL TO ‘Not set’ or ‘No exception’
NOT compliant - Confirm exception applicability	Red	OA status not ok (as per REF OA policy) AND REF exception is ‘Not set’ Earliest deposit date of eligible version is NOT within 3 months of Acceptance/Publication date (depending on policy phase) OR Earliest access date to eligible version is NOT within 1 month of Deposit date OR NOT within 1 month of Embargo end date AND REF exception is EQUAL TO ‘Not set’
NOT compliant - confirmed	Grey	OA status not OK (as per REF OA policy) AND REF exception is ‘No exception’ Earliest deposit date of eligible version is NOT within 3 months of Acceptance/Publication date (depending on policy phase) OR Earliest access date to eligible version is NOT within 1 month of Deposit date OR NOT within 1 month of Embargo end date AND REF exception is EQUAL TO ‘No exception’
No full publication date input	Yellow	Outputs in ‘Publication date’ phase of policy where OA status cannot be determined as no full Publication date (Publication status = ePub ahead of print/Published) has been input Acceptance date is between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2018 (inclusive) AND ePub ahead of print is populated, but incomplete OR ePub ahead of print is not populated, but Published is populated but incomplete OR Neither ePub ahead of print nor Published is populated

These REF OA Statuses are determined by the OA status calculated on the Research output in Pure (including the extra conditions for REF - see underneath), plus the REF exception status:

Main Value	Sub-value
Not set
No exception
Deposit exception	Individual was unable to secure the use of a repository at the point of acceptance
	Individual experienced a delay in securing the final peer-reviewed text
	Individual was not employed by a UK HEI at the time of submission for publication
	In would be unlawful to deposit, or request deposit of, the output
	Deposit of the output would present a security risk
	The output was published as "gold" open access
	Deposited within 3 months of publication
Access exception	Output depends on the reproduction of 3rd party content for which open access rights could not be granted
	Publication concerned requires an embargo period that exceeds the stated maxima, & was the most appropriate publication for the output
	Publication concerned actively disallows open-access deposit, & was the most appropriate publication for the output
Technical exception	At the point of acceptance, the individual was at a different UK HEI which failed to comply with the criteria
	The repository experienced a short-term technical failure that prevented compliance with the criteria
	An external service provider failure prevented compliance
	Output is a conference proceeding, but not within definition
Other

REF2021 OA Calculation: Extra Conditions Relating to Embargo Period

In calculating the Open Access compliance status, the embargo period is also taken into consideration, for that we check the UoA of the related REF1/REF2

This requirement is:

If your publication is in Panel A or B then the embargo period must be 12 months or less for the research output to be considered Compliant.
If your publication is in Panel C or D then the embargo period must be 24 months or less.

Note: 24 months is the default maximum embargo period in Pure, so if the embargo period on the Research output record is longer than 24 months, it is already considered Not Compliant before this extra filtering is applied.

According to the GoS 250 Interdisciplinary research outputs returned in a UOA in Main Panel A or B that span boundaries with a UOA in Main Panel C or D may respect the longer of the two embargo periods. Therefore if a Research Output is related to a UoA in main panel A or B and at the same time related to a REF1 in mail panel C and D, the output will be compliant if the embargo period is less than 24 months.

Notice if the REF1/REF2 change UoA the compliance status of the Research output might change.

Calculating OA status

You can follow this flowchart to see how the OA status is calculated (this is a visual representation of the written rules above).

Location the information in Pure

The status is calculated in the Research output editor window > Metadata > Assessment section. When this record is saved, the REF OA Status is determined/updated.

It is then shown (read-only) in the REF2 editor window > Metadata > Open access compliance status. The status is ‘dynamic’ and updates automatically if changes are made in the Research output editor window.

Who can see the section in the editor

On the Administration tab → System settings → REF2021 → REF2021 OA compliance visible to roles you can indicate which roles you have access to see the open access section in the Research Output editor

The following roles can be added (insert as a comma separated list)

administrator
claim-administrator
publication-administrator
publication-deduplicator
ref2020-administrator
publication-editor
localReporter
publication-reporter
publication-submitter
publication-validator
ref2020-ref2-editor
ref2020-ref2-tracker
ref2020-ref2-administrator (supereditor of REF2)
ref2020-unitofassessment-supereditor

Who can overwrite the OA Compliance Status

The following roles has access to change the Open Access Compliance Status:

Administrator
REF Administrator
Administrator of Research Output

We have interpreted 1 month = 31 days(In consultation with Research England, we have interpreted 1 month = 31 days)

Updated at December 18, 2024