Scholarly Communication

Open access (OA) information is free to read online (no paywalls) and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions, meaning that users can freely share and reuse the content. Check out Peter Suber's A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access for a succinct overview or Open Access Explained! for a video explaining how OA differs from traditional academic publishing.

• Publishing OA removes barriers to research, leading to more equitable participation in the scholarly commons and enabling public access to research
• More people will read and potentially cite your work - OA research outputs receive more diverse citations
• There's greater potential to find research collaborators
• If you've received a grant, your funding agency may require you to make your work available OA

• Submit manuscripts to quality OA journals in your field. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a great place to locate OA journals. 
• Deposit your work in an institutional repository, like ISU ReD, or a disciplinary repository. More information about depositing work to ISU ReD is available on the How to Submit page.
• If you are publishing in a subscription journal, you may be able to make it open access for a fee, often called an Article Processing Charge (APC)
• Milner Library has agreements with several publishers to cover APCs!

There are many types of OA publishing, but these three are particularly common: green, gold, platinum/diamond, and hybrid.

• Green open access works are versions of previously published works that have been self-archived in an OA repository, such as ISU ReD or arXiv.org. Depending on rights retained by the author and the publisher's policies, work versions could be pre-prints (prior to peer review), post-prints (after peer review but before publisher layout and typesetting), or the publisher PDF/version of record (final version that appears in publication). Check the publisher's policies for each work before self-archiving, or ask the Scholarly Communication librarian for help.
• Gold open access works--such as journal articles, books, and book chapters--are originally published open access. Typically gold OA publishing requires the author of work or a funder to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC).
• Platinum/Diamond OA works are originally published OA but do not require payment from authors or readers. These journals are often sponsored by an institution or organization who bears any operational costs.
• Hybrid open access works are single articles that are published in a subscription journal but are made open access through a fee. The author or a funder pays the Article Processing Charge (APC). You may be able to pay an APC through grant funding, or Milner Library may have an agreement with the publisher to cover the cost.

Looking for another discipline? Check out this list of disciplinary repositories from the Open Access Directory.