What is Open Access?
Open access is the process by which research outputs are made freely available online. In the true sense, an open access publication will also have a license dictating how the item can be used, reused and repurposed. With open access journals the model changes from a subscription to read the material to a cost known as the APC (article processing charge) for publishing. Many traditional journals also offer the opportunity to make an article open access but this will be an additional cost to the journal subscription. Sometimes, APCs for articles published in traditional journals that are called hybrid (offering the open access option) can be very high, the average being about €2,500 but they can go much higher dependent on the potential popularity of the paper.
This short video explains the concept of open access
The Colours of Open Access for Publications
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Green |
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Green Open Access (or self-archiving) means material either published in open access journals and/or personal website or repository. A version of an article, accepted into a journal can be lodged on an open access repository on acceptance, this can mean the authors start accruing citations prior to final publication. |
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Gold |
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Gold Open Access means articles published in Open Access Journals where the article may be free to publish or where the author pays a fee (known as an article-processing charge- APC) |
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Blue |
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Blue Open Access means that articles can be archived post-print (post peer review) |
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Hybrid |
A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. This status typically requires the payment of an APC to the publisher in order to publish an article open access, in addition to the continued payment of subscriptions to access all other content. |
Green Open Access (self-archiving)
A journal accepts the article and it goes through the peer-review process. After the peer review process, the author lodges the final draft version on the institutional repository with or without an embargo (12-36 months). This version has Creative Commons licence attached, which states that the article can be read and reused by anyone as long as it is attributed to the author/s. The article is formatted and is then published in the journal. However, that version can only be read by those who have subscribed to the journal
Gold OA (Author publishes in an Open Access Journal)
There may be charges or there may not be charges. If charges are applied, they are likely to be a lot less than a hybrid journal and will be to cover costs.
Blue OA Author publishes through an academic press or through the institutional repository. This approach can offer peer review, editorial expertise and so on just like a conventional publisher but it can depend on the institution.
Hybrid OA (Author pays a conventional publisher)
The journal publishes the article and the author pays to have it available as open access. Typical charges are about €2,500 but can be much higher depending on how popular the article is likely to be. Journals that charge a subscription for access to the journal and charge the author for open access to individual articles are termed hybrid journals. This is also known as paid open access and is seen as compensation for loss of the subscription.
An easy way to establish the publisher’s policy on open access is to use the Sherpa/Romeo website. This is not comprehensive and if the journal is not listed here, the next step is to look at the publisher’s website for their open access policy.
Unpaywall
Unpaywall Is a project of Impactstory, a not for profit company that is building tools to help make scholarly research more open, accessible and reusable. This is a free service that locates open-access articles and presents papers that have been legally archived and are freely available as open access. Unpaywall is a database of almost 20 million freely available scholarly articles. If a paper is available, Unpaywall’s grey ‘lock’ icon turns green and ‘unlocks’.
How to install Unpaywall
Find Unpaywall and turn it on by sliding the swipe to the right
Arrow@TU Dublin is the institutional repository for Technological University Dublin. Here you can deposit a version, normally the author’s final draft, of your article in the repository on acceptance by the journal and thereby gain an early citation advantage. You can also upload other categories of material such as working papers, powerpoints or any other format that can help to disseminate your research. Arrow can accept multiple formats and streaming is also available. Each author in Arrow receives a monthly dashboard of downloads statistics relating to their own materials and one url or their open access publications. There is also a publishing module that allows the university to publish double blind peer review journals. Statistics can also be produced for Schools, Colleges and Research Groups (contact the library).
Arrow has a live readership map where downloads happen in real time demonstrating the reach of our open access publications. Contributing to Arrow makes TU Dublin’s research freely available globally, enhances the potential for collaborations and demonstrates the quality of our research. In July, 2019 Arrow has 13,329 papers which have been downloaded 7,790.566 times in ten years.
Access the Digital Commons Network here
The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities nd colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
The material in the Network is separated into Commons or Subjects so for example the Engineering Commons, the Law Commons and so on. The material is then further subdivided into sub divisions of the main subject areas. The Network is a great way of keeping up-to-date and both authors and institutions can be followed.
