About Sherpa Romeo

Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world. Every registered publisher or journal held in Romeo is carefully reviewed and analysed by our specialist team who provide summaries of self-archiving permissions and conditions of rights given to authors on a journal-by-journal basis where possible.

The policy information provided through this service primarily aims to serve the academic research community. Since the service launched over 15 years ago, publisher policies and the open access sector have changed a lot. Open access policy can be complex and varies according to geographical location, the institution, and the various routes to open access — all of which affects how and where you can publish your research.

All of the information provided by the service is correct to the best of our knowledge but should not be relied upon for legal advice.

Using the new version of Romeo

We have created video tutorials and a user guide to help make the change to this version of Romeo.  Check them out on our Help page.

Key Information

Find out more about the service — just click on a topic below:

Contacting us about Sherpa Romeo

Our contact page provides information on how you can contact us about all aspects of the Romeo service, for example:

  • Requesting new publisher and publication listings
  • Making updates to current listings
  • Asking questions about our service
  • Providing feedback

Inclusion Criteria

Journals

  • Journals must have a valid ISSN listed on their website — to be valid it must appear on the ISSN portal.
  • Each website must clearly state its editorial board.
  • All licences, open access policies and copyright statements must be readily available online
  • Your open access policy should include at least one way that an article (any version – Published/Accepted/Submitted) can be made open access.

Publishers

  • Contact details must be readily available
  • Publication ethics policies must be clearly stated on the website

We use COPE Guidelines on publication ethics as a guide to best practice when evaluating publishers for inclusion. We recommend that publishers follow these guidelines.

Linking to a Specific Record

All records listed in Romeo have their own persistent URI which can be used to link to a specific record. The URI can be found in each record's Record Information section.

Re-using Sherpa Romeo data

Our data is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. For more information, please visit the Jisc re-use policy page.

Exceptions to this can be negotiated for specific purposes. Please contact us for more information.

API Access

Data stored in Romeo is available over the Sherpa APIs. For more information please see our API Documentation.

Publisher Policy Icons

Publisher policies are stored as a set of pathways. Each pathway represents a way in which a document can become Open Access. Pathways may have the following properties, with associated icons:

Prerequisites
Requirements that must be met to allow the pathway to be used, this includes:
  • Prerequisites: General prerequisites.
  • Prerequisite Funders: The pathway applies when funded by these funders.
  • Prerequisite Subjects: The pathway applies to research of these subjects.
OA Fee
The pathway requires the payment of a fee (in addition to any normal publication fees that may be required) to make the article Open Access.
OA Publishing
The pathway includes Open Access Publishing.
Embargo
The pathway does not allow availability of the item until the embargo period has ended. Unless stated otherwise, the embargo starts on the date of publication.
Licence
The licences that the pathway requires.
Copyright Owner
The copyright owner that the pathway requires.
Publisher Deposit
The repositories in which the journal publisher will automatically deposit the article version.
Location
The websites on which the pathway allows the article version to be available. This includes self-archiving and publisher-deposit locations, including the website of the journal.
Conditions
Conditions that apply to the pathway.
Notes
Notes about the pathway.
Not Permitted
No Open Access pathway exists for the article version.

Glossary

Academic Social Network
A social network where academics can deposit their publications, e.g. ResearchGate or Academia.edu
Article Processing Charge (APC)
A fee which is charged to authors to publish in an open access journal. Also known as: Publication fee, Article processing fee
Accepted Version
The final author-created version that incorporates referee comments and is the accepted for publication version. Also known as: Authors Accepted Manuscript (AAM), Authors accepted version, Final Author version, Post-print
Any Website
Any website or repository, including Author's Homepage, Institutional Repository, etc
Associated Publisher
An organisation that is associated with the journal, for example an academic society
Author's Homepage
The personal home page of the author
Creative Commons
A collection of open licences. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org
DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
A persistent identifier that uniquely identifies an article
Funder Designated Repository
A repository required by the funding agency
Institutional Repository
A repository that is associated with the Institution of the author. See Non-Commercial Institutional Repository
Institutional Website
A website at the author's institution that is not the institutional repository
Journal Website
The primary website on which a journal may make articles available for download.
Non-Commercial Institutional Repository
A repository that is associated with the Institution of the author and is only used for not for profit content and re-use. Typically, an Institutional Repository will also be a Non-Commercial Institutional Repository
Non-Commercial Repository
A repository that is only used for not for profit content and re-use
OA Fee
A fee that is paid in addition to other publication fees, in order to make an article open access immediately.
Open Access Journal
A journal which is free to access at point of publication
Pathway
A way in which a document can become Open Access. A policy is made up of multiple pathways that represent the permissions that the policy grants.
Preprint Repository
A repository that primarily contains articles prior to peer-review, e.g. arXiv.org
Published Version
The publisher-created published version, that has been peer-reviewed and copy edited. Also known as: Final Published Version, Version of Record
Publisher
The organisation which holds the rights to determine the journal's open access policy, for example, a commercial publisher or an academic society
Subject Repository
A repository that only contains articles within a pre-set subject field
Submitted Version
The version that has been submitted to a journal for peer review. Also known as: Author's Original Manuscript (AOM), Original manuscript, Pre-print

Romeo colours

While popular, listening to users' feedback, we have now retired the Romeo colours. As open access policies have become more complicated, the colours no longer gave a clear overview.