Academic Publishing Support

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) defines Open Access (OA) as "the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment." This is done through both the publishing and archiving of scholarly publications. 

Open Access Publishing

Open Access Publishing refers to the ways in which an author provides their research for publication, including any fees (called Article Processing Charges, or APCs) paid to the publisher and rights retained or waived by the author. 

• Gold – Fully open access journals where all articles are fully accessible on the journal's website under a Creative Commons or similar license. An APC is usually paid by the author (or other funder).
• Diamond/Platinum – Fully open access journals that do not charge APCs. These are usually funded by universities, professional organizations, or other associations. Think of them as gold open access without APCs. 

• Green – Authors are allowed self-archiving, generally of the pre- or post-print of articles in an institutional repository. 

Open Access Archiving

Open Access Archiving refers to the ways in which a publication is made available to others and the rights of the author and publisher for sharing the published work.

• Open access journal: All journal content is available for researchers to read, print, download, distribute, or link to without fees.
• Hybrid journal: Subscription journals in which some articles are open access and others are paywalled. Authors may pay to make individual articles open access in these journals.
• Embargoed open access: Also called delayed open access. This is a subscription model that provides open access to content after a period expires. For example, the most recent content may only be available to subscribers, while the archived issues are open access.

Further Reading