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Article Processing Charges (APCs) and Open Access Publishing: Open Access Publishing Categories

Improving the existing guide

Open Access Types

Types of Open Access:

There are many types of open access, perhaps because it is such a young movement that it's still developing standards. That said, there are three basic types:

  • Green – refers to self-archiving generally of the pre or post-print in repositories
  • Gold – refers to articles in fully accessible open access journals
  • Hybrid – sometimes called Paid Open Access, refers to subscription journals with open access to individual articles usually when a fee is paid to the publisher or journal by the author, the author's organization, or the research funder.

Green Open Access

 Green Open Access refers to the post-print of an article:

  • Pre-Prints – The author's copy of the article before it’s been reviewed by the publisher or pre-reviewed
  • Post-Prints – The author's copy of the article after it’s been reviewed and corrected, but before the publisher has formatted it for publication, or post-reviewed.
  • Publisher’s Version – The version that is formatted and appears in print or online.

Open Access Publication

Green Open Access

  • Publishers allow open access versions of non-OA material to be archived, ie the accepted manuscript or pre-print)
  • A version of the output is accessible from institutional repositories or subject/discipline repositories 
    • This can be the cheapest form of academic publishing (it is free for both author and user)
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