Open Access FAQs
Browse these FAQs to learn more about open access.
What are the different types of Open Access?
The following are the major types of open access:
Gold – refers to articles in fully accessible open access journals or articles published OA in hybrid journals (subscription-based journals that support OA publishing with an APC paid). Sometimes, people will regard OA publishing in hybrid journals as "Hybrid Open Access".
Green – refers to self-archiving generally of the pre or post-print in a subject-based repository or an institutional repository.
Bronze – refers to a freely available journal article (that can only be read on the publisher's site) that has no open license.
Diamond – refers to open access journals that are free for readers to access and for authors to publish in. These journals are often community-driven and supported by institutions or by national or regional infrastructure.
For more detailed comparisons, refer to this page.
How do I find an open access journal?
You can find open access journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. Since it was launched in 2003, DOAJ has indexed over 17,000 OA journals.
Under OA publishing, who retains the copyright?
Under Gold OA, authors will usually retain the copyright of the open access articles.
Fully Open Access Journals allow the author to retain the copyright in their articles. Articles are instead made available under a Creative Commons licence (usually Attribution-Only, or CC-BY) to allow others to freely access, copy and use research provided the author is correctly attributed.
Hybrid Open Access Journals give the author the option of publishing their article as open access or publishing via the traditional method. The author (or their institution or funder) will usually have to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to make their article open access but in doing so retains copyright.
If authors have transferred their rights to the publisher and the article is published via the traditional method, usually they can still provide open access self-archiving (Green OA).
Which versions of an article do publishers allow to make available in Open Access via the Green OA route?
Publishing your article via the traditional subscription route but archiving a version of the manuscript in an open access repository, making it freely accessible for everyone after a set embargo period is often described as green open access.
Most frequently, the version deposited is the author accepted manuscript (prior to copyediting and typesetting, but has passed the peer review) rather than the final published version. Some publishers also allow depositing of the submitted version or pre-print.
Policies vary depending on publishers and journals. You may find the open access policies of journals on SHERPA/ROMEO, an online resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.
Are open access articles peer reviewed?
YES.
Although there are still predatory journals that undermine the good work done by most, many open access articles in quality open access journals/hybrid journals undergo the same rigorous peer review as articles published via the traditional subscription-based publishing model. The main focus of the open access movement is "peer-reviewed research literature." So generally, you can trust those quality open access articles.
What are Article Processing Charges?
Article Processing Charges or APCs are fees charged by publishers to make articles in scholarly journals open access.
According to publishers like Springer, APCs usually cover the editorial work, production of articles, marketing of journal and content, etc. These fees may be paid by the author himself/herself, the author’s institution or funding body. Now some scholarly journals, particularly those supported by universities, publish open access with no costs at all to researchers – these journals are known as “Diamond” open access journals.
What are Creative Commons Licenses?
Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”
There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here:
CC BY:
This license 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.
CC BY-SA:
This license 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. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC:
This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-NC-SA:
This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-ND:
This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-NC-ND:
This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.