Open Access and Publishing Resources: Open Access Basics

GOLD OPEN ACCESS:

Gold Open Access outputs are those that are made available on an Open Access basis immediately upon first publication. This may or may not involve the payment of an "Article Processing Charge" (see below). With regards to journal articles, there are two main routes to making work available on a Gold Open Access basis:

• Fully Gold journals are those whose entire contents are always available on an Open Access basis
• Hybrid Gold journals are those that still operate on a traditional "reader pays" subscription model, but payment of an Article Processing Charge will make individual articles within them available on an Open Access basis. 

The distinction between Fully Gold and Hybrid Gold Open Access is an important one that will influence where researchers submit their work. Researchers should only submit papers to a Full Gold journal if they have guaranteed access to funds to pay the article processing charge should their paper be accepted for publication.

GREEN OPEN ACCESS:

(also known as self-archiving)
Green Open Access outputs are those that are published in traditional, restricted access outlets but then made available for free after an embargo period (determined by the publisher) in some form of online repository (see below). This is referred to as author self-archiving, as it is the authors of the papers who themselves deposit copies of their work in an online repository. 

DIAMOND OPEN ACCESS - "Free to read, Free to publish"

Diamond Open Access is an innovative Open Access model which addresses both cost and journal quality concerns, as the Diamond model requires no article processing fees while maintaining journal quality. Diamond OA emphasizes achieving academic goals: making knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption as free as possible.

In Diamond Open Access, the author submits a preprint to a repository.  What makes Diamond Open Access different from Green Open Access is that the preprint then becomes part of an "overlay journal" which is available online for free to readers and libraries. Because preprints are not peer-reviewed, the overlay journal must have its own quality control or peer review system. Some have an editorial review board funded by membership fees and donations, while others use volunteer peer reviewers who do editing and reviewing without financial compensation.

PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS

Platinum open access is a model of scholarly publishing that does not charge author fees.  Platinum Open Access Journals are typically the ones run by professional associations and nonprofit organizations, and their economic model relies on membership dues and donations. Platinum Open Access journals run by government agencies are funded by tax.

BRONZE OPEN ACCESS (Used by Elsevier)

In the Bronze model, no Open Access Fee is paid, but the publisher chooses to make a publication freely available to read. Many Open Access advocates and research funders would not regard Bronze as truly Open Access because the publisher can stop the publications from being freely available at any time (i.e. it relies upon the good will of the publisher), whereas genuinely Open Access publications have a specific licence (often a Creative Commons licence) that means the publication is irrevocably Open Access and the terms of use and reuse are clearly stated.

EMBARGO PERIODS:

Journals that allow the self-archiving of papers usually do so after an embargo period. This embargo period runs from the first publication of your article in that journal. This means that during the period of the embargo you cannot make the full text of your article available freely online. The embargo period will depend on both the journal and on who funded your work; for example, journals may allow a shorter embargo period depending on who funded the initial research on which the article reports.

ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGE:

This is the charge levied by some publishers of Gold Open Access publications to cover the costs associated with academic publishing i.e. copyediting, journal management, web hosting, and so on.

PRE-PRINT

An author's own version of an article before it has undergone peer review and traditional publication.

POST-PRINT

An author's version of an article incorporates all the changes and suggestions required by peer reviewers and editors, but not the publisher's copy-edited and formatted version. Many publishers allow the self-archiving of the post-print version of an article but not the publisher's "official" formatted version. These are also often referred to as "Author's Accepted Manuscripts".