Open Access: What is Open Access?

What is Open Access?

Introduction to Open Access

Open Access typically refers to scholarly communication and research outputs that are freely available to the public, without paywalls or the need for a subscription or access fee. A key part of open access is licensing. Many OA articles use Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which clearly state how others can use the work. The most common is CC BY (Attribution), which allows others to copy, share, and even adapt the work, as long as they give credit to the author.

 

What is Open Access? [video]

'What is Open Access?' by SHB Online [YouTube]

Types of Open Access

  • Gold - An open access journal is one where the full text of the published version is available online for no cost to the reader, i.e. there is no subscription cost. The submitting author is often (but not always) required to pay an article processing charge (APC) at the time of publication (costs range from $1500-$3000 per paper). Check the SHERPA/RoMEO list of Publishers with Paid Options for Open Access.
     
  • Diamond - refers to a non-commercial model of scholarly publishing where both authors and readers have free access to publications, without any fees. Platforms such as OJS (Open Journal System) are often used to support Diamond journals.
     
  • Hybrid -  where a subscription-based journal offers immediate open access options for authors who pay an APC or have negotiated what is referred to as a 'read and publish' agreement. Without an agreement or  payment of the APC, the access is traditional paywalled/subscription access. 
     
  • Green - After publication, you can make your work green open access by depositing a full-text version in an open repository such as the VU Research Repository (VURR). Once it is published in an open repository, your full-text paper will be freely available on the internet to read, download, print and cite. To ensure you can deposit a full-text version in an open repository, make sure this is in the terms of your publishing contract before signing. Check your publisher’s self-archiving policy through SHERPA/RoMEO. Many publishers allow the author accepted version (the version after peer review or the final submitted version) or pre-print (pre-peer reviewing) to be deposited.
     
  • Bronze - open access refers to freely available journal articles with no license (and therefore no permission for reuse) 
     
  • Black - open access refers to illegal open access (such as those articles available on pirate sites such as Sci-Hub and academic social networks like ResearchGate). These sites put the author at risk of takedown notices by copyright-holders(publishers)

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