Open Access
Open Access publishing couples immediate online access to scholarly works with appropriate scholarly citation and credit. It provides free and legal access to online publications. New federal access policies require publications be made immediately available without an embargo.
There are many different types of Open Access.
Gold
Fully Open Access Journals: Publishers who support fully open access journals sometimes may charge an Article Processing Charge (APC). They only publish Open Access. DOAJ is a trusted resource for finding Open Access journals. Quality Open Access articles will have gone through a peer-review process, and quality journals will be transparent about that. They will also be transparent about the price of their APCs.
Hybrid Open Access Journals: Some traditional publishers, like Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, and more, offer journals where authors can make a choice between publishing the traditional route or publishing Open Access. As with fully open access journals in the gold route, hybrid OA journals also charge an APC to make the work open access. Other articles in this journal remain behind a paywall and accessible only through a subscription.
Green
This type of Open Access publishing takes place at the repository level. Journal policies often allow authors to archive the peer-reviewed accepted manuscript of their article at no cost. Open Policy Finder is a good resource to check journal archiving policies. Some examples of repositories include the UND Scholarly Commons, ArXiv, and Digital Library of the Caribbean.
Diamond
Diamond Open Access Journals do not charge article processing charges. These are usually funded through library subsidy models, institutions, or societies. Filtering by ‘journals without APCs” in the DOAJ will provide you with a list of diamond OA journals.
Note that for a work to be truly open access, authors need to give users the rights to use them in a digital environment. Some Open Access articles can be free of price barriers but not permission barriers, so it allows for free online access to works but not reuse, republication, or remixing of the work.
Creative Commons Licenses are one way authors can allow users to reuse, redistribute, or remix their work, depending on which type of license they choose.
When working with federally funded research, you should plan to include Article Processing Charges (APCs) in your grant proposal. It’s helpful to research typical journal APCs in your field to account for cost in your application.
Read and publish agreements allow UND faculty to publish open access at no additional cost. They also allow the authors to keep their copyright. These agreements minimize or eliminate the financial burden to faculty that arises with APCs.
The Chester Fritz Library manages an Open Access Publishing Grant to support UND researchers. This funding is intended to reduce the burden of high APC prices for UND researchers. For grant details, see our Open Access Publication Grant page.
UND has several librarians who can assist you with open access questions. Please see the Contacts and Other Resources page to find the librarian affiliated with your campus unit.