Open Access and Open Access Publishing

Open access refers to the idea that publicly funded research should be freely available online to the public. Governments and funding bodies globally are introducing policies that encourage or require open access to research publications resulting from research they fund, to ensure widespread dissemination of findings in order to maximise potential benefits.

Open access publishing generally refers to the types of dissemination options available for providing open access to publications. There are two distinct approaches or roads to open access (the green road and gold road).

Open access journals refers to journals which are freely accessible online. A range of publishers produce OA journals, including traditional commercial publishers, non-profit and for-profit open access publishers, universities, research centres, and learned societies, under a variety of business models. Some OA journals charge authors a fee, or article processing charge (APC), to publish their article. You can find open access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Benefits of OA include:

• Help you meet funding body requirements - some funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), require that publications resulting from research projects they fund be made openly accessible
• Increase the visibility of your work by making it available to a wider audience, for example researchers in developing countries, the public and practitioners who may not have access to subscription journals
• Result in higher citation rates. See The effect of open access and downloads ('hits') on citation impact: a bibliography of studies
• Enable collaboration with researchers throughout the world.

What does Green or Gold Open Access mean?

Green Open Access (Green OA)

Green OA, also known as 'green open access' or 'author archiving' model, involves making approved version(s) of the paper available in an open access repository.

Gold Open Access (Gold OA)

Gold OA relates to the published version of the paper in the journal. Open access journals, hybrid open access and membership models are all publishing variations available within the gold road.

Making an Informed Decision

Publishing quality

Just like any other type of scholarly publishing, selecting an appropriate open access publishing outlet (e.g., journal, conference, or book publisher) of high quality and impact is crucial for your track record as a researcher.

To make a strategic and informed publishing decision, you need to evaluate the quality, impact and reputation of the prospective open access journal/conference/publisher. The same selection and evaluation criteria and process applied to any other publisher should be applied to OA publishing outlets.

Please see the Publishing Strategy section in this guide for more information.

Funder OA policies/mandates

Increasingly, research funding bodies, such as the NHMRC and ARC, have introduced policies or mandates which require researchers to provide open access to any publications arising from their grants. This can be achieved in a variety of ways (Gold OA or Green OA) and depends on the funder and the publisher's policies on open access.

Please see the Resources box below for tools and resources you can use to find information on funders' OA policies and publishers' copyright policies regarding OA.

Resources about Open Access