FAQs and procedures for publishing

1.What is the Telethon policy in support of OA publishing?
2. How do I comply with the Telethon Open Access policy?
3. What should I do if the journal does not have an OA option, nor allows me to self-archive my manuscript in Europe PMC?
4. If a publisher offers a paid open-access option, am I obligated to select this option?
5. Instructions for self-archiving
6. What is the difference between a PMCID and a PMID?
7. Which license should I choose for my article?
8. An article is licensed under CC-BY: what does this mean?
9. How will OA costs be covered?
10. How do I proceed to use funds from my active Telethon grant?
11. When an open-access fee is levied what does Telethon require from the publisher? 
12. Will Telethon pay the open access fee for a research paper which has been supported in part by Telethon and in part by another funding agency?
13. Procedures for publishing
14. Who can I contact for more information?

Telethon considers supporting unrestricted access to the published output of research a fundamental part of its mission. To this end, Telethon actively took part in the initiative led by the Wellcome Trust to establish an European version of PubMed Central (Europe PMC).

In order to share a common approach with the other members of the Europe PMC Funders Group, so to open up access to its funded research, Telethon implemented the Telethon Open Access Policy, that is mandatory for all funded grant holders.

As an author, you do comply with the policy by following the guidelines provided in the document Guidelines for Telethon’s Open Access Policy. There are two main routes:

“Green Route” - Many publishers allow authors to self-archive the author manuscript version of their article and make it freely available from PMC/Europe PMC within six months of publication. Authors should archive these papers using the Europe PMC plus manuscript submission system.

“Gold Route” - Many publishers offer an ‘immediate open access’ option implying that through the payment of a fee, the publisher will deposit the final version of the published article in PMC and Europe PMC and make this available at the time of publication. Telethon-funded authors are encouraged to select this option only if the “Green Route” is not available.

You can search the SHERPA/RoMEO database, which provides information as to whether or not a journal has a publication policy that is compliant with Telethon’s Grant Conditions.

If the journal to which you wish to submit your manuscript is not listed in the database, Telethon strongly encourages you to speak directly to the journal's editorial staff to determine their policy.

We expect our grant holders to be aware of the costs of publishing in different journals and only use journals that they consider represent value for money.

If you need further information, please contact [email protected].

Authors are unlikely to be able to comply with the Grant Conditions if the journal does not have an Open Access option nor allows self-archiving in PMC/Europe PMC within six months of publication. If this is the case, authors have two main options:

It depends on the policy of the publisher.

If the publisher offers to free-deposit into Europe PMC the accepted version of the author’s manuscript and sets a public release date of 6-months post-publication (at the latest), Telethon requires its authors to take advantage of this free-deposition possibility.

If a publisher only offers a paid open-access option - which provides free access to the published version in PMC/Europe PMC, at the time of publication - then to comply with the Telethon’s Open Access policy the author must select this option.

Use the manuscript submission system is available at the url: https://plus.europepmc.org/login.

Please find the comprehensive user-guide: https://plus.europepmc.org/user-guide and if you have any problems please do not hesitate to contact the [email protected].

The accepted, peer-reviewed version of the manuscript should be submitted. The author may submit the version of record for Creative-Commons-licensed articles; otherwise, if the author wishes to submit a PDF created by the publisher, the publisher must have granted permission for this use. Check your journal’s version policy at SHERPA/RoMEO. Supplementary material that has been submitted to the journal in support of the manuscript should also be included.

Manuscript files are submitted to Europe PMC - via Europe PMC+ - by the author or anyone given access to the author's files (administrative personnel, graduate students, librarians, etc.).

If a paper has been written by someone other than the principal investigator (PI) -typically named as the grant holder-, submission to Europe PMC plus should be made using a user-created login (a login account can be created at the Europe PMC plus site). When the PI is the author, submissions should be made using the Europe PMC plus login account, automatically supplied to the PI. If you are a PI and have not received or have mislaid this login, please contact the Europe PMC helpdesk by email: [email protected].

Irrespective of who submits the paper, approval of the PDF receipt and web version of the manuscript requires review and authorisation. This authorisation is usually given by the PI - but the PI can also appoint someone to do this on his/her behalf. For example, if the research has been undertaken by staff other than the PI (e.g. research assistants etc.), it might be more practical to grant approving rights to the actual author of the paper - not the named PI.

In any case, submitted papers are not processed until approval is given (see the Reviewing a submission paragraph and video tutorial). Once approved, the citation in PubMed - and the full text in PubMed Central/Europe PMC - will cite the authors as listed in the manuscript, irrespective of whether or not the PI is a named author.

The PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) is different from the PubMed reference number (PMID). PubMed Central is an index of full-text papers, while PubMed is an index of abstracts. The PMCID links to full text papers in PubMed Central, while the PMID links to abstracts in PubMed. PMIDs do not demonstrate compliance for published papers with Telethon’s Open Access Policy.

In the case of publication in a journal that authorizes the self-archiving of the article in Europe PMC within six months from the official date of publication, Telethon encourages authors and publishers to licence research papers using the Creative Commons licences so they may be freely copied and re-used (for example, for text- and data-mining purposes, or creating a translation), provided that such uses are fully attributed (eg, Creative Commons licenses CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-ND).

Should Telethon’s funds be used to pay the Open Access option, Telethon asks authors and publishers to allow the article to be covered by the Creative Commons license CC-BY.

The CC-BY licence allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. Credit must be given to the creator.

Please, also refer to the CC-FAQs page for any question.

Open Access fees are advised only if you are publishing in a journal that does not archive nor allow self-archiving in Europe PMC within six months of the date of publication.

We expect our grant holders to be aware of the costs of publishing in different journals and only use journals that they consider represent value for money.

To cover the OA costs, Authors may:

a) Use funds from their active Telethon grants

This is valid for:

b) Use other funds and/or, when a paper has arisen from research funded by more than one funding agency, split the costs among the funding agencies.

To use funds from an active Telethon grant, Authors must:

Note: All other publication costs, such as colour printing or page charges, will continue to be covered by Authors, who may use funds from their Telethon grants.

In return for the payment of the Open Access fees, Telethon requires the publisher to:

If a paper has arisen from research funded by more than one funding agency making an OA policy mandatory, the costs of making that paper Open Access should be split proportionally.

To use funds from an active Telethon grant, refer to the FAQ 10.

Authors can check the Open Access policy of the Journal they intend to publish in:

The following cases apply:

See FAQ 9. and 10. on how to cover OA costs.

If you have any queries about this policy and its implementation, please email: [email protected].