Support for Affiliated Faculty

Open Access (OA) refers to a model of scholarly communication and academic publishing that allows readers to view materials freely online, without cost or other barriers. In traditional models, readers and/or institutions pay subscription fees to provide access. Costs associated with publishing are often paid by authors, but may also be paid by funding agencies, academic institutions, or repositories.

Gold Open Access is published in an open access journal with peer review. There is no truly comprehensive list of all such journals, but the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides an extensive vetted list. 

Green Open Access is published in an open access repository with no peer review. The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) or OpenDOAR provide comprehensive lists. Preprint repositories, such as aRxiv, bioRrxiv, and medRxiv, offer the ability to make research accessible prior to formal publication and peer review. 

Hybrid journals allow authors to pay to make their articles open access, but subscription fees still apply for the journal since not all articles are OA. 

Additionally, authors may distribute works using open content licenses, such as Creative Commons.  

When choosing to publish Open Access, you should consider the following:

• Author rights using a tool such as Sherpa Romeo or talking to a WCM-Q librarian.
• Costs associated with publishing.
• Open Access directives from funding agencies (Public access mandates)
  • NIH Public Access Policy Guide from WCM Samuel J. Wood Library
  • Wellcome Trust Open Access policy
  • Check Sherpa Juliet
• Is it reputable? Use tools such as ThinkCheckSubmit, the DOAJ, or Cabells Predatory Reports (WCM-Q login required) and consider the journal’s participation in the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
• Is there a repository that suits my needs? You may want to distribute your research on an open access repository, stand-alone or in conjunction with publishing in a journal.

We offer advice on choosing journals, consults about author’s rights, and may provide support through agreements with publishers and identifying publication funds.