How can I upload my research to an open access platform?

Uploading research to an open access platform involves making your scholarly work freely available online, typically facilitated through institutional repositories, subject-specific repositories, or publisher platforms. This process ensures global accessibility without subscription barriers. Key considerations include selecting a reputable platform relevant to your discipline (e.g., arXiv for physics, PubMed Central for life sciences, or your institution's repository), verifying your manuscript version aligns with publisher copyright policies (often the Author Accepted Manuscript), and providing accurate metadata. Ensure you choose an appropriate Creative Commons license defining reuse rights. Crucially, confirm the platform indexes content for discoverability via search engines and scholarly databases. The process typically requires creating an account on the chosen platform, submitting your manuscript file along with essential metadata (title, authors, abstract, keywords), selecting a license, and completing any required declarations. Upon submission, the platform may perform basic checks before publishing. This enhances visibility, accelerates knowledge dissemination, increases citation potential, and fulfills many research funder mandates.