This page describes the technical standards expected for articles in scope of the NIHR open access policy applicable to articles submitted on or after 1 June 2022. Key terms are explained in the glossary.
Technical standards for journals and publishing platforms
Persistent Identifiers (PIDs)
- Persistent Identifiers for articles are implemented according to international recognised standards such as Digital Object Identifiers (DOI), Uniform Resource Name (URN), or Handle.
- NIHR strongly encourages journals to support common unique PIDs for research management information (for example identifiers for funders and/or organisations).
- ORCID, the researcher identifier, is supported to identify all authors and contributors.
Metadata
- Article-level metadata is available, if possible, via a Creative Commons public domain dedication (CC0).
- The metadata standard adheres to international best practice such as the Crossref schema and OpenAIRE guidelines.
- Machine-readable information on the open access status and the licence is embedded in the article metadata in a standard non-proprietary format.
Preservation
- Long-term preservation is supported via a robust preservation programme such as CLOCKSS, Portico or an equivalent.
Citations
- Openly accessible data on citations is made available according to the standards set out by the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC).
Open Access policies
- Self-archiving policies are registered in the SHERPA RoMEO database.
Technical standards for repositories
The bullet points below list the technical standards expected for repositories in which in scope articles are deposited. Note that Europe PMC already meets these standards.
Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) for research outputs
- Implemented according to international recognised standards, such as DOI, URN or Handle.
- NIHR strongly encourages repositories to support common unique PIDs for research management information (for example identifiers for funders and /or organisations).
- ORCID, the researcher identifier, supported to identify all authors and contributors.
Metadata
- Article-level metadata is available, if possible, via a CC0 public domain dedication.
- Article-level metadata includes the persistent identifier to both the Author’s Accepted Manuscript and the Version of Record.
- The metadata standard adheres to international best practice such as the OpenAIRE guidelines.
- Machine-readable information on the open access status and the licence embedded in the metadata in a standard non-proprietary format
Open Access policies
- The repository is registered in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).