Open Access

Publishing Open Access

Although open access is intended to make research available at no charge, there are still upfront costs involved in making this happen. Because this is a relatively new practice, there are still various economic models being tested to see what works best, and which are most equitable for all parties involved.

Some publishers use “Closed” or subscription-based models, which require payment for access. Those looking to offer free access to materials, typically use one of five common OA models—the most popular being “Gold” and “Green.”  You can learn more about the models in the table below.

Open Access Publishing Models

Image	Bronze. Peer reviewed articles published in subscription journals. Authors transfer copyright to the publisher. Publishers make articles freely accessible to the world based on marketing reasons. Free access can be rescinded at any time.
Image	Hybrid or Gold-hybrid. Peer reviewed articles published in subscription journals. Authors may retain copyright. Authors pay an additional fee to make their articles open access to the world. Other articles in the journal are accessible only through library subscriptions or individual purchases. Mix of open access and subscription.
Image	Gold. Peer reviewed articles published in full open access journals. Authors may retain copyright. Authors may pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publishers to cover their publication costs. All articles in the journal are open access to the world through Creative Commons licenses.
Image	Diamond. Peer-reviewed open access journals where authors do not pay article processing charges to publishers and institutional funds support most publication costs. Authors may retain copyright. All articles in the journal are open access to the world through Creative Commons licenses. Articles published in Diamond journals are considered Gold articles.
Image	Green. Un-refereed preprint manuscripts or refereed author accepted manuscripts (AAM) published in archives or repositories. Authors usually retain copyright of preprints, while requirements from publishers vary for AAM. All manuscripts are free to read or open access --usually through Creative Commons licenses-- and available to the world in perpetuity. Some licensing restrictions may apply to articles submitted to subscription publishers.
	Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a subscription-based model that makes open access to a journal’s current content contingent on an annual subscription target being reached. If the revenue target is met, that year’s content is opened. If it isn’t, access to the content remains limited to subscribers. During open years, all journal articles are free to read or open access --through Creative Commons licenses-- and available to the world in perpetuity.

Table by Moriana Garcia, University of Rochester, CC-BY 4.0. Images modified from Pixabay (Pixabay License). S2O logo from DOAJ Blog under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license.