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Open Access

Digital technology has changed the way the academic community disseminates scholarship. Open Access publishing models offer opportunities to increase access and enhance the availability of research results to scholars and the broader general public. Open Access publishing, Institutional Repositories, and a burgeoning list of peer-reviewed online journals are just a few examples of new publishing options available to scholars.

A common misconception about open access as a publishing model is that it does not meet the same standards and level of prestige as traditional publishing models, but this is far from the case. The aim of open access scholarly publishing is to make high quality scholarly content available freely on the web, meaning these articles undergo most of the same processes as closed access articles, including rigorous peer review.

Types of Open Access Publishing

While the end result—free access to read the article—may be the same, journals currently have a variety of OA publishing models to choose from, including:

  • Diamond OA: Article is published with no author fees and accessible to read via the journal
  • Gold OA: Author pays an article processing charge (APC) to publish article
  • Hybrid OA: Journal gives author the option to pay an APC to make their article open access
  • Green OA: Article is closed access, but author retains the right to publish a version of the article (such as a preprint or postprint) in an institutional repository or similar archive

Another common misconception of open access is that there is no copyright, meaning others can reuse and adapt the work as they see fit. However, as with traditional publishing models, copyright policies for OA journals vary. Being published in an open access journal does not automatically place the article or any of its content in the public domain, nor does it guarantee that the author retains copyright.

As such, it is still critical to know how to manage your rights when publishing in an OA journal. Some common arrangements include:

  • The journal assumes copyright, but the author receives an exclusive license to share the work, such as depositing it in a repository
  • The journal assumes copyright but applies a Creative Commons license to the work, permitting
  • The author retains copyright and issues an exclusive or non-exclusive license to the publisher to publish and disseminate the work

Just as you would when publishing in a closed access journal, make sure to consider your copyright preferences when selecting an OA journal. This includes whether or not you would like to have a Creative Commons license applied to your work.

Creative Commons

Another strategy for retaining and assigning your copyright is to publish your work under a Creative Commons license. These licenses allow authors to retain the copyright to their work, and can be used to set the terms and conditions by which others may use the work. Some publishers are satisfied with the rights that authors license to them through Creative Commons and will agree to publish your work under some of the Creative Commons license options.

U of I Library Open Access Support

The University of Idaho Library maintains a number of resources to facilitate open access publishing:

  • Open Access Publishing Fund - Each fall and spring semester, limited funding is available for faculty, staff, and graduate students to cover APCs
  • VERSO – The U of I institutional repository can host open access versions of articles and other research
  • Transformative Publishing Agreements – The Library has negotiated with several publishers to reduce and/or waive APCs for U of I faculty, staff, and students
  • Pressbooks – U of I affiliates can utilize this open access platform to author and/or adapt open educational resources

Additional Resources

  • Peter Suber’s excellent Open Access Overview
  • A growing directory of open access journals at Directory of Open Access Journals
  • ArXiv (Cornell) - The most extensive and longest-running open access repository provides open-access to e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology and Statistics
  • A growing directory of open access repositories can be found at the Directory of Open Access Repositories
  • Open Courseware Initiative (MIT) - This site hosts freely-available educational materials which are specifically meant to be copied and used by faculty members for non-commercial purposes
  • Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center (North Carolina State University) - A wealth of information is available on this excellent website. Not only does it explain how open source publishing works, it also provides guidance for people who want to make their works freely available for all to use