A publications repository can be found on the website at https://www.publications.cuni.cz. This repository is used to make available the full texts of the results of science and research at Charles University. Its establishment is anchored in Rectoral Order No 40/2021 on the recording of scholarly work, projects and staff mobility at Charles University.

Charles University staff and students who deposit their results and make them accessible (self-archive them) in the Charles University Publications Repository do so voluntarily. However, the accessibility of the full text of research results may be a condition for the approval of funding for research projects. All Charles University staff and students who wish or need to publish their research results in an open-access form can therefore add them to the repository. Here, you can provide access to the unpublished versions of the full texts of your results, as well as to results already published by a publisher in open-access mode (as per the gold road to open access). Many publishers allow publications to be self-archived in institutional repositories even if the publication is not published in open-access mode (the green road to open access). These publishing methods are described in more detail on the Open Science Support Centre’s website.

How to make results accessible in a repository

The full text of a research result is made accessible in the repository via the OBD Věda IS module. After the full text is uploaded to the result record in the OBD module, the data is checked by an open-access coordinator (the contact details for open-access coordinators at each faculty and their departments can be found on the Open Science Support Centre website) and if everything is in order, the result is transferred to the repository. The result is entered in the OBD module by the author of the result or by a person acting on behalf of the author, e.g. the faculty administrator in charge of registering results, as per established procedures and practices at each faculty and unit. In order for a result to be made accessible in the repository, it is necessary to comply with the publisher’s licensing conditions (if the result has already been published) and, at the same time, to obtain the consent of all co-authors for publication (Specimen consent form).  

If a result with multiple authors has already been published in open-access mode and is subject to a public licence that allows the work to be distributed (e.g. any Creative Commons licence), there is no need to obtain the co-authors’ consent to self-archive the full text of the result. Nor does consent need to be obtained if the co-authors of the result work for Charles University (under an employment contract or an agreement on the performance of work) and the result is created as work made for hire and is subject to the proprietary copyright of Charles University.

Summary information with brief instructions on how to archive results and make them accessible can be found on the repository website. 

The Open Science Support Centre at Charles University has prepared guidance materials to help you to archive and make accessible the full text of your results in the repository. 

• Basic summary of how the full text of a result can be archived and made accessible
• Detailed methodology for the archiving and making accessible of results from a user’s perspective

The Open Science Support Centre’s methodological support has included training for authors. A recording of this training is available here, and this presentation was used during the training.

Brief requirements/conditions for the self-archiving of R&D results in the Charles University Publications Repository 

• Charles University staff and students who deposit their results and make them accessible (self-archive them) in the Charles University Publications Repository do so voluntarily.
• Full text results may only be uploaded to the repository in PDF/A format.
• The result must be published in open-access mode, or the possibility of self-archiving must be included in the licence terms of an individually concluded licensing agreement or in the general licence terms on the publisher’s website (if both exist, the terms in the agreement take precedence over the general terms on the website).
• If a licensing agreement does not permit self-archiving, an addendum to the agreement can be negotiated with the publisher to allow self-archiving (but this is always only on a case-by-case basis). 
• If a journal is only published in print and its issues are not available online, this is not open access => self-archiving in a repository is not possible. 
• If a journal/publisher makes its issues freely available online, but the licensing agreement or the site’s general licensing terms do not allow self-archiving in a repository, the result cannot be uploaded to a repository. This is known as gratis open access and the results are published for reading only. 
• A solution can be found by entering into an addendum to the licensing agreement that permits self-archiving (but this is only on a case-by-case basis). 
• Open-access journals usually have a Creative Commons public licence for their publications that permits self-archiving in a repository. 
• Licensing terms and conditions may vary from journal to journal, so you should study them carefully.