Q. Should I publish in an open access journal?

Should I choose an open Access or subscription-based journal?

When choosing a journal, authors should review the journal's subscription model. Traditionally, subscription-based journals allow authors to submit their manuscripts for free. In exchange for free submission, authors must sign over copyright ownership to the publisher and pay the journal to view and share their own content. In addition, these publishers charge readers to access the journal content.

In contrast, open access journals require authors to pay an upfront fee. Authors retain their copyright ownership over the published content, and authors and readers can access and share the journal content for free.

Am I required to publish in an Open Access journal?

Certain funders may require authors to publish their articles in an open access journal. This is the case with NCI Cancer Moonshot funded research. Review your funding mandates to be sure you are choosing the correct license.

How will I pay for the open access fee?

Open access fees are typically paid for through departmental funds, grant funding or transformative agreements available through the library. The purpose of the fee is to cover the charges incurred when editing and formatting your paper. View the chart below for more details.

The library offers some discounts on open access fees.

Are open access journals predatory?

Most open access journals adhere to the same standards as traditional subscription based journals. However, there are questionable or predatory journals that will ask authors for a fee, but not provide editing or peer review services. Even though they will usually follow through with “publishing” your paper on their website, these papers will rarely end up in major databases like PubMed. This can damage the author’s reputation and affect their promotion and tenure process.

If you have concerns about whether or not a journal is predatory, review the key indicators of a suspicious journal or ask a librarian for help.

What is the difference between green and gold open access?

• Gold Open Access requires authors to pay an article processing fee which makes the article free and immediately available to readers upon publication.

• Green Open Access, also known as self-archiving, is an agreement between the author and publisher which allows authors to make their article publicly available through PubMed Central or an institutional repository without a fee. Please not that an embargo period of 6-12 months usually applies.

Which copyright license should I choose when publishing in an open access journal?

Creative Commons licenses allow authors to clearly define how others can reuse your work. Here are the two main licenses we recommend.

• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license, which allows anyone to reuse your work, provided they credit you and don’t reuse your work for commercial reasons.

• If you have concerns around adaptation of your work, you can apply a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. This means that you have to be credited, any reuse of the work has to be on non-commercial terms, and the work has to be used in full.