Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica is aware of the progress in the field of scientific communication and supports the principles of Open Access, whose main goal is to remove barriers to access and disseminate the results of science and research funded from public sources. As a signatory of the Budapest Declaration and the Berlin Declaration, in compliance with the University’s Long-Term Vision for the years 2020 – 2026 and the National Strategy for Open Science 2021 – 2028, it is committed to promoting free and unrestricted access to scientific results and adopts an Open Access policy based on the principles outlined below.

 

Article 1
General Principles

1. The main mission of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica is to create and disseminate knowledge that protects, strengthens and develops democratic and humanistic values and contributes to the solution of social challenges in the 21st century. In fulfilling our mission to be an open, dynamic and intercultural institution that provides education and develops science, research, innovation, culture and arts, we respect the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, rule of law principles, human rights and sustainable development that underpin our activities.
2. Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica perceives the economic and social functions of  the open access to the results of science and research funded from public resources. Efficient and extensive dissemination of scientific outputs is an important part of the role of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica as a public research institution.

 

Article 2
Objectives of the Open Access Policy

1. The aim of the open access policy at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica is to provide barrier-free online access to the outputs of science and research funded from public sources in order to increase the visibility of scientific outputs and thus increase their impact on the development of society.
2. Preservation of publications in the institutional repository of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica ensures long-term archiving, dissemination of scientific outputs, as well as the access to them for the purpose of an internal and external evaluation.

 

Artilce 3
Definicion of Basic Terms

Open access means immediate online access to publications without any charges or restrictions on copyright or licensing, as usually stated in contracts with publishers.

Green open access means publishing in journals and books that are available on a subscription/purchase basis, whereby the author, in accordance with the copyright set by the publisher, immediately after publication deposits the work in an appropriate open repository, so called self-archiving.

Gold open access means publishing in journals and books with immediate open access, with any financial costs for publishing (APC/BPC, Article Processing Charges/Book Processing Charges) are paid by the author.

Publication is a peer-reviewed published work of scientific, research and teaching staff and students of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. Publication means article in a journal, article in a proceedings, monograph, chapter in a monograph, research report and other documents that have been produced as employee publications.

Open access institutional repository of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica is rUMBa – the MBU repository (available at the URL https://repo.umb.sk) implemented in accordance with international standards and providing advanced tools for searching, navigation and  open access to digital collections.

Research data are data (e. g. statistics, experimental results, measurements, observations, interview records, images, etc.) used to confirm the results presented in scientific publications.

Digital copy is an electronic copy of a publication. It can be the author’s original manuscript a preliminary document before it is peer-reviewed and published (pre-print), the version of the author’s final manuscript accepted for publication after the peer-review process (post-print), or the publisher’s version of the publication.

Public/open licence is a legal act against unspecified persons that protects the rights of the author while giving users the freedom to reuse, share, distribute and modify the publication.

Embargo is a period of time, set by the publisher, during which the full text of a publication is not made available once it has been deposited in the repository. The embargo period starts on the first day of official publication and usually lasts 6 – 24 months.

Metadata are data that describe other data and are used to search and manage publications in a repository. The examples of basic document data are in general publication title, author information, journal title /proceedings title, publisher information, date of publication, DOI, ISBN/ISSN, etc.

 

Article 4
Principles of Open Access Policy

The University of Matej Bel in Banská Bystrica defines basic principles for the purpose of promoting open access as follows:

1. It is required that digital copies of full texts and related metadata of all publications published by Matej Bel University – Belianum Publishing House have been stored and made available in rUMBa under a public license. Works published with commercial purposes are not subject to the principles of this policy.
2. The university research staff are required to upload and make available in rUMBa a digital copy of the full text and related metadata of scholarly publications published by other publishers. It is the responsibility of the research staff to deposit their publications in the repository in time and with full respect to the publisher’s copyright.
3. It is required that the fulltext of all publications referred to in points 1 and 2 above has been made publicly available immediately or as soon as possible. For peer-reviewed publications published by a publishing house other than Matej Bel University – Belianum Publishing House, these may remain inaccessible for a maximum of the embargo period set by the publishing house.
4. It encourages researchers to retain their copyright and to grant the publisher only the rights necessary for publishing the publication. This is made possible by the use of an addendum to the publication agreement. A template of the addendum is available at https://sparcopen.org/our-work/author-rights/sparc-author-addendum-text/.
5. It is recommended that researchers use the unique Open Researcher Contributor ID (ORCID iD) or Researcher ID when publishing peer-reviewed publications.
6. It is recommended that the research staff prefer the recommendations of grant agencies for open access publishing when selecting journals for publication and include fees associated with open access publishing in the budgets of upcoming projects.
7. In case making the full text available contravenes with the publisher’s terms and conditions, it is recommended that the abstract of a publication be deposited and made available in rUMBa.
8. It is recommended that the research staff deposit and publications published before the effective date of this policy, respecting the publisher’s copyright, and make them available in rUMBa.
9. Journals published at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica are encouraged to be published in the highest possible standards of the open access regime, which may allow their indexing in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
10. It is recommended that the researchers  deposit their research data necessaryfor the validation of results in published papers, either in rUMBa or in the other proper open access repository designed to store the research data and make them accessible.

 

Article 5
Open Access Support

 Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica is committed to the following activities to promote the open access:

1.  Organise seminars, events and educational activities on the open access issues.
2.  To develop a required infrastructure to support the open access policy (institutional repository, publishing platforms for journals and proceedings).
3.  Provide necessary human resources to implement the open access policy.
4.  Include the open access policy in the university’s conception materials and prepare documents supporting the implementation of open access in practice.

 

Article 6
Final Provisions

 This Open Access Policy of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica enters into force and effect on 10 January 2022.

  

                                                                          doc. Ing. Vladimír Hiadlovský, PhD.
                                                                                               MBU Rector