"Gold" open access journals are journals that follow the typical processes of publication such as peer-review and typesetting, but publish their articles freely on the internet. These journals may be pure OA journals that only publish open access content, or they may be "hybrid" journals, which publish most of their content behind traditional paywalls, but allow certain articles to be publicly available.
Many, but not most, open access journal require article processing charges (APCs) from researchers to offset the cost of publication. While the majority of OA journals to not charge researchers, many high-impact hybrid journals can charge thousands of dollars in APCs.
As an additional benefit to our faculty, students, and staff, the A.T. Still Memorial Library has entered into several agreements that enable ATSU-affiliated researchers to publish open access at no charge with the following publishers:
|
Publisher |
Articles Covered |
How to Publish Your Work Open Access |
|
Cambridge |
Only hybrid journals (ie. No purely open-access journals) List of eligible journals (select A.T. Still University to see journal list) |
Use your ATSU email and list ATSU as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Cambridge journals. You will automatically qualify for free OA publishing. |
|
Springer |
Only hybrid journals (ie. No purely open-access journals) |
Use your ATSU email and list ATSU as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Springer journals. You will automatically qualify for free OA publishing. |
|
Wiley |
All open-access articles covered |
Use your ATSU email and list ATSU as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Wiley journals. You will automatically qualify for free OA publishing. |
| BMJ Case Reports* | Any case report published in BMJ Case Reports | Contact a librarian for the discount code needed to qualify for free publishing submission. |
*not open access, but free to publish in.
To learn more about how to take advantage of these programs or for help identifying journals that fit your research, reach out to your liaison librarian.
Publishing open access has many benefits for the researcher, including:
OA publishing is becoming increasingly common, and nearly all the major publilshers you are familiar with publish a variety of open access journals. In addition, many major journals you already know and publish in may have open access publishing options. If you want to publish your work OA, try browsing the websites of publishers and journals you are already familiar with for OA publishing options.
Check out the tools below to help you identify high-quality OA journals that fit your research. You can also reach out to your liaison librarian, who can provide customized journal suggestions based on your research topic and publishing goals.
Most open-access journals are reputable and of high quality, but predatory publishers often use the term "open access" when describing themselves, making it difficult for researchers to evaluate the journals they may want to publish in. Some indicators to look out for when evaluating OA journals include:
This information is adapted from the Grand Valley State Libraries Open Access Journal Quality Indicators, released under a CC-BY-NC license.