Open Access Publishing Models
Gold Open Access Journal: All journal content is available for researchers to read, print, download, distribute or link to without fees. Authors are often required to pay an Article Processing Charge to make their work Open Access immediately.
Hybrid Journal: Some select content is open access upon request by author, typically via publication or author fees, while some content in the journal remains behind a paywall.
Embargoed Open Access: Subscription model that provides open access to content after an embargo period expires.
Diamond (or Platinum) Open Access Journal: A journal that does not require an Article Process Charge to make an article immediately Open Access and is also free to readers.
Green Open Access: Articles that have been made open access in an institutional repository or disciplinary repository even if the publisher's version (also known as the Version of Record) remains behind a paywall.
How to Pay for Open Access
Publishing your work open access doesn't have to cost a thing!
Diamond Open Access and Green Open Access are completely free routes to publishing open access. Additionally, budgeting for the cost of Article Processing Charges (APCs) in grant requests will assist with publishing costs in the future.
Selecting an Open License
If you are publishing your work open access, you will be asked to select from a list open license options. This lets readers understand the rights that you have maintained and the rights that you have given away. In other words, the reader will know how they can use your work and the best way to give you credit.
One open license provider is Creative Commons. Here are the license options:
Attribution (by)
ShareAlike (sa)
NonCommercial (nc)
NoDerivatives (nd)
To learn which license is right for you, visit:
Search for Open Access Articles
- Open Access ButtonFree, legal research articles delivered instantly or automatically requested from authors.
- UnpaywallThis tool searches and finds full-text research papers as you browse. Data is sourced from open-access repositories including institutional repositories and reprint servers
Tools to Publish Open Access
- Find open access journals in your discipline, search the Directory of Open Access Journals. To be included in the DOAJ, each journal must apply and meet a number of academic standards.
- Evaluate the quality of an OA journal by using the Open Access Journal Quality Indicators or Think.Check.Submit.
- Understand publisher policies by searching SHERPA/Romeo - a database of publisher's policies regarding the self-archiving of journal articles on the web and in open access repositories.
Selecting an Open License
Pre-Print Repositories
A preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. It allows authors to make their findings immediately and freely available to the community. Most major publishers allow authors to submit work that is already available as a preprint.
Below is a list of current preprint repositories:
- arXiv - For physics, mathematics, computer science, quanititative biology, quantitative finance, and statistics. Funded by Cornell University and the Simons Foundation as well as member institutions.
- bioRxiv - For biology. Operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- OSF Preprints - A open preprint repository network incorporating agriculture, engineering, psychological sciences, and social sciences. Operated by the Open Science Framework.