Open Access

What is Gold Open Access?

Gold OA is when research is available as open access (OA) immediately through the publisher. Publishing Gold OA sometimes requires the payment of an article processing charge (APC).

Gold OA articles can appear in open access journals, where all content is immediate OA, or in 'hybrid' journals, where they appear alongside closed articles.

Gold OA options

Open access journals

OA journals publish all content as full and immediate open access. Authors usually retain copyright of their work, with the journal publishing it under a Creative Commons licence.

Some OA journals levy article processing charges (APCs) to cover their costs. Most OA journals to not charge APCs as they are sponsored by universities or associations. Those that do charge, tend to charge less than hybrid journals (Morrison, 2018).

The Directory of Open Access Journals is the most complete listing of OA journals and their policies. DOAJ is also a useful tool for evaluating journals, due to its has high quality control standards.

Contrary to common open access myths, most OA journals have high peer review standards. Highly ranked OA journals can also be found in most disciplines. You can find a list of high-impact Q1 OA journals in the Scimago Journal Rankings list.

Hybrid journals

A hybrid journal is a subscription journal that will make articles OA for a fee (an APC). The OA article then appears in the journal alongside paywalled subscription-only content.

Publishing OA in hybrid journals tends to be more expensive than publishing in OA journals. It is also not supported by many grant providers, including the signatories to the Plan S open access initiative (see Science Europe, 2019). However, hybrid OA does meet ARC and NHMRC open access requirements.

Deakin has Open Access Agreements (also called Read & Publish Agreements) with multiple publishers which cover the open access APC cost for Deakin affiliated corresponding authors. Check out our guide to Open Access: Publishing Agreements to learn which journals are included and how to use the agreements for free open access publishing.

Book Publishing

Most book publishers that offer OA publishing do so on a hybrid model, where the author pays the publisher a fee to make the work OA. As book publishing differs from journal publishing, fully OA book publishing is uncommon.

Major academic book publishers with OA options include: ANU Press, Brill, De Gruyter, Palgrave Macmillan, Peter Lang, Routledge (Taylor & Francis), and Springer.

Non-Traditional Research Outputs

If you produce reports, creative writing, artworks, performances, or audiovisual materials as part of your research and wish to make these openly accessible, consider Creative Commons licensing. These licences allow you to retain copyright and choose the conditions under which your work is released.