Open Access
Open Access Publishing
The simplest way to make your work open access is to publish it with an open access publisher, as a journal article or book. This is typically known as "Gold" open access. Since this method follows traditional publication workflows, such as editorial and peer review, publisher editing and formatting, and a final version of record being published on a formal site, it is the most popular pathway for authors. The biggest challenge for Gold open access is that the most common business model for offsetting the costs of publication is to apply an Article Processing Charge (APC), to be paid by the author, their funder or their institution.
Most open access journals do not charge APCs (this is known as "Diamond" or "Platinum" OA), so if you are interested in publishing your work OA, there are many options for finding the right journal for your work - most of the indexes listed below have a facet or filter for finding journals without a charge.
If there is a specific journal you need to publish with that is not open access, it will mostly likely provide an open access option, called hybrid OA, where you can make your specific article open access if you pay an APC.
Many funding agencies will allow you to budget for APCs as part of your grant proposal, especially if they have a public access policy
Additionally, ASU Library does have some partnerships or subscriptions that either completely cover or provide a discount on APCs with certain publishers.
Where to Publish
Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides an index to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. It only includes OA journals that pass its evaluation criteria. Additionally, most traditional publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature also provide open access options.
Whether deciding to publish in a traditional or open access journal, it is important to carefully evaluate the credibility of the publisher and the journal to avoid sketchy or scam journals (sometimes called predatory publishers). See Evaluating Publishing Options for more information on what characteristics to look for. Or, consider this simple checklist of "Think! Check! Submit!."
- SCImago Journal RankA publicly available portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. These indicators can be used to assess and analyze scientific domains. Journals can be compared or analyzed separately.
- TOP Factor Journal Evaluation ToolThe TOP Factor metric is an alternative way to assess journal qualities based on the degree to which they comply with and implement the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines.
- JANE - Journal/Author Name EstimatorSearches Medline for relevant journals based on article title, abstract, or by keywords.
- Chronos Hub Journal GuideThis is a free tool to guide authors through the journal selection and submission process. It is integrated with the v2 Sherpa Romeo, Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, and other sources.
Books
Many academic publishers produce open access books, including university, commercial and academic-led publishers. A publisher should give clear information on their website about the services they offer and any fees involved, the open access model they offer and their peer-review processes. If you are interested in publishing a book or a book chapter open access, the following indexes will help you explore your options.
- OA Books ToolkitThis Toolkit is aimed at promoting and supporting open access to academic books. It consists of short articles covering a wide range of topics relating to OA books, each including a list of sources referenced, further reading and links to definitions of key terms.
- Directory of Open Access BooksDOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers.
- Open Book PublishersPublishes open access academic research in the humanities and social sciences. Books are published as hardback and e-books. All books include a free online edition that can be read via the website, downloaded, reused, or embedded.
- Open Humanities PressPromotes open access scholarship in journals, books, and exploring new forms of scholarly communication. Open Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought available worldwide.
- LuminosLuminos is University of California Press’ new Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.
Article Processing Charges (APCs)
Open access publishing still requires funding operating costs. Many journals are supported by an institution or sponsor, but the most well known method of support is through Article Processing Charges (APCs), modeled after traditional page charges. Rather than charging the reader or institutions to access content, publishers generate revenue by requiring authors to pay an APC, ranging from a few hundred dollars, to upward of $5,000 depending on the journal.
It's important to remember that charging authors to publish is not solely limited to open access publishing, and can include charges for color images, number of pages, or including supplementary material.
Since many funding agencies require researchers to make their published work and accompanying data sets openly accessible, authors may budget for covering publishing costs as an allowable budget expense in their proposal. SHERPA/JULIET provides the open access policy of various funding organizations.
Book Processing Charge (BPC)
Publishers use a variety of business models to support open access book publishing. Some of these models require a fee to be paid by the author’s funder or institution. If a book processing charge is applied, the book should be made open access immediately upon publication. Since the publication process for books tends to be more intensive than for journal articles, the costs to support OA publishing tend to be higher - typically ranging from $1500 for a single book chapter to over $12,000 for an entire monograph.
Hybrid Open Access
If you are publishing in a tradition or subscription journal, you may be offered the option to make your article open access for a fee (usually through an article processing charge or APC). This is referred to as "hybrid open access." While this can be a convenient way to ensure your work is OA while publishing with a familiar journal, hybrid open access raises concerns about publishers double-dipping. This is where libraries continue to pay annually increasing subscription costs, while authors also pay APCs that also continue to go up in cost. Since publishers do not tend to be transparent about their business models, hybrid OA is not preferred as a model by most open access advocates or libraries.
Open Access Publishing Discounts for ASU Authors
While the majority of open access journals publish articles for free, many of the most well-known open access publishers do require that authors pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to offset the cost of publication. The ASU Library supports ASU authors through our relationships with publishers as well as consulting with authors to identify appropriate publication options that will expand the reach and impact of their work.
We are able to provide waivers or discounts on APCs with certain publishers as a result of the following partnerships and subscriptions:
- Cambridge University Press JournalsFull waiver: ASU authors who are the corresponding author can publish articles open access for no cost in CUP gold and hybrid journals, due to a Read and Publish agreement with ASU Library.
- The Electrochemical Society (ECS Plus)Full waiver: ASU Library subscribes to ECS Plus, which provides ASU authors with unlimited Open Access Article Credits - allowing them to publish their articles with a CC-BY or CC-BY-NC-ND license for free.
- PeerJFull waiver: ASU Library has an Annual Institutional Membership, providing unlimited publishing with no additional fees for eligible authors. If you submit to any PeerJ journal using a recognized affiliated email, and are the Corresponding or Admin author of the submission, we will recognize you as eligible to publish using the Annual Institutional Membership.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)Discount: ASU has a current site license agreement with PNAS, which grants corresponding authors from ASU a $500 discount ($4,975 compared to the regular $5,475). Note that all PNAS articles are freely available 6 months after publication.
- ACS Journals- American Chemical Society Open Access publishingDiscount: ASU Library subscribes to ACS’ All Publications package - therefore, corresponding authors from ASU can apply the Member at Subscribing Institution discount if available for that journal.
- MDPIDiscount: Our relationship with MDPI provides a 10% discount on article processing charges for ASU affiliated authors. Additionally, MDPI facilitates co-posting your article in our institutional repository.
ECS has provided these directions: How to publish open access with ECS
Some funding agencies will allow these charges to be paid from grant funds, but of course, not all authors are funded. Many publishers will grant a waiver of the APC upon request if the author is not able to pay, so it is always worth checking to see if that’s a possibility. In addition, there are other ways you can make your work openly available for free.