Journal author rights and self-archiving: the case of Spanish journals

Abstract

Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. The lack of clarity of publisher permissions for archiving in OA repositories affects the adoption of the green OA route. This paper explores editorial policies and self-archiving conditions in 1,615 Spanish scholarly journals. 48% are published by university and research institutions, 25% by associations/societies, and 17% by commercial publishers; social sciences and humanities (SSH) accounted for 67% of the journals (44.5% and 22.5%, respectively) followed by health sciences (20%); 71% offered gratis access immediately after publication, and 11% after an embargo; 31% provided some mention of author rights. Self-archiving was specifically allowed by 65% of the journals; 52% were classified as ROMEO-blue, 12% as green and 15% as white, and 21% could not be classified; 21%, mostly in SSH, used some type of Creative Commons license.