There are a number of benefits to open access publishing for your scholarship, one of which is the removal of financial and access barriers to the outcomes of research.
“Open access” is a broad set of principles and practices for sharing research outputs (including publications and data), where they are freely available online and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
“Public access” is a policy term referring to “free availability of federally funded scholarly materials to the public. (White House Office of Technology Policy).
In some cases, publishing in an open access journal may not meet public access policy guidelines. For example, NIH-funded research articles published in some open access journals may still need to be deposited into the NIH repository PubMed Central in order to be compliant.
There are different approaches to open access in terms of how copyright is handled in agreements between authors and publishers, whether there are fees, and how you might be able to pay those fees. Ultimately, any open access option will allow you to share some version of your work with the wider world freely at no cost to readers. There are many ways to make your work open. Choose the approach that works for you and your co-authors.
Speak with colleagues in your field about OA journals and publishing options as a first step. For those interested in conducting a more detailed evaluation themselves, try the following sources.
Open Access Journal Quality Indicators Prepared by academic librarians at Grand Valley State University, this handy guide is easily digestible for researchers looking to determine whether an Open Access journal is of sufficient quality for their dissemination needs.
Addressing Faculty Publishing Concerns with Open Access Journal Quality Indicators The article above explores the development of the Open Access Journal Quality Indicators specifically to address faculty publishing concerns at a large public university neighboring U-M.
Think-Check-Submit For an additional layer of due diligence in your evaluation process, you can compare an Open Access journal to the criteria listed at Think-Check-Submit. This tool is another quality assessment resource for researchers seeking to publish. Their checklist for journal quality is particularly helpful.
Deep Blue Documents and Deep Blue Data are the University of Michigan’s institutional repositories. These platforms expand worldwide access to documents and data produced by researchers affiliated with the university. If you have an affiliation with the University of Michigan (or are working with U-M faculty as a co-author, for example), you may submit your work to Deep Blue.
When you sign publishing agreements, make sure you retain the right to deposit your work in the institutional repository. The U-M Library Copyright Office’s template author’s addenda can help you retain rights when negotiating with publishers. Keep in mind that “Green OA” publication occurs when you self-archive a version of your article in Deep Blue as your institutional or disciplinary repository.
You can get in touch with the Deep Blue team at deepblue@umich.edu to learn more about your options for sharing documents and data in the University of Michigan’s institutional repository.
For monographs, consider TOME -- Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem. TOME is an initiative of the Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses to advance the wide dissemination of scholarship by humanities and humanistic social sciences faculty members through open access editions of peer-reviewed and professionally edited monographs. University of Michigan is a founding member and offers grants to university faculty every year.
Many grants provide funding for publication and may require open access publication of some sort. Check the terms of your grant and your liaison in ORSP if you have questions about the specific terms of your sponsored research.
The Simmons University OA Publication Funds Directory, as well as SHERPA/Juliet, may be good places to begin your search for potential funding opportunities. Be sure to look for funding opportunities applicable to your affiliations and those of your collaborators.
Some publishers offer discounts on article processing charges (APCs) to U-M authors seeking to publish their work in an Open Access format. Please check with the specific publisher to determine whether these discounts remain in place before choosing to submit your work. This guide includes information about APC discounts specifically for U-M scholars.
No. Open access journals that do not charge such fees are often referred to as “platinum” or “diamond” open access. For example, the Open Library of Humanities utilizes a consortial funding model to offer OA publication opportunities to scholars without imposing any APCs with support from some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world.
Some college and university campuses around the United States offer institutional funds for covering the OA publication fees of their authors. To learn more, visit SPARC’s page about campus open access funds. Be sure to look for funding opportunities applicable to the affiliations of yourself and your collaborators alike.
Some non-open access journals do charge publication fees by page, for color figures, etc. Author-side publication charges are not exclusive to certain open access journals, and never have been.
There is research to suggest that open access articles receive some amount of citation advantage over their subscription-access counterparts.
For more information on this advantage, consult the following journal articles:
You can review popular resources for campus engagement provided by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an international advocacy organization of academic and research libraries “committed to making Open the default for research and education.”
Look at Getting Started with Deep Blue and Deep Blue FAQ. For more help, contact Deep Blue Repository and Research Data Services to learn more about how the University of Michigan Library can preserve your scholarly work digitally while extending its visibility online: lib-dbrrds@umich.edu
Contact the U-M Library’s resident expert on research impact, who helps scholars manage their public identity and gauge their influence in their respective fields.
Contact the Director of Publishing Services, who leads a division focused on innovative approaches to scholarly publishing.