Types of Open Access
Open Access can be achieved by choice. The colours of open access (green, gold, bronze, diamond) were adopted in the beginning of the OA movement but can cause confusion. The words given to each type or colour of open access carry certain connotations that subtly imply the validity of different types of open access. Using precise language assists in breaking down the confusion about open access. The new designations are as follows:
- Free to publish, free to read, often community driven journals and supported by institutions or by national or regional infrastructure.
- Repository based, when the author accepted version of a published work is deposited into a subject-based repository or an institutional repository. Every university in Australia has a repository for this purpose. Free to publish, free to read. International examples include PubMed Central® (PMC) and Europe PMC. Articles may have a Creative Commons License applied, which specifies how the article can be used
- Journal based, pay to publish in a fully Open Access journal, one where the publisher of the journal provides free and immediate online access to the full content of the journal and the final published versions of articles in that journal are fully open access. Articles have a Creative Commons License applied, which specifies how the article can be used. In some cases, the publisher charges an article processing charge (APC), which may be paid by the author’s institution or funding body or by an individual researcher. APCs may also be paid as paid of transformative agreements. A comprehensive list of open access journals is maintained by the Directory of Open Access Journals. There is also a Directory of Open Access Books.
- Pay an article processing charge (APC) to publish the article as OA, article is made free to read, other articles in that journal require a paid subscription to access. This type of open access always has an APC associated with it and these APCs are usually higher than for fully open access journals.
- Freely available article, has no open licence (therefore cannot be considered fully open access), not shareable or reusable
- Illegally downloaded or pirated versions of articles.
(Open Access Australasia, 2021)
