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OA and OER in TUS: OA models

The aim of this guide is to define OA and OER as well as outline their benefits for TUS staff and students

Multiple Open Access routes

There are several open access publishing models, the main ones are Green, Gold and Diamond (all described below). Not expanded on here are Hybrid (which charges APCs and fees to access for the readers/institutions, not a sustainable model), Bronze (free to read but difficult to reuse as licenses are not identifiable) and Black (unauthorised sharing of articles kept behind paywalls)

 Gold, Green and Diamond explained

 (source unknown, 9https://guides.library.cmu.edu/openaccess)

Green Access

  • This the practice of placing a version of an author’s manuscript into a repository, making it freely accessible for everyone.
  • The version that can be deposited into a repository is dependent on the funder or publisher.  It may be the author's final peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript that can be deposited or the final publisher's version.
  • There is usually an embargo period, meaning that the author's manuscript cannot be made freely accessible until after a certain period of time has elapsed (often 6 to 12 months). Note some articles come with zero embargo Green Access.
  • No article processing charges are paid.

Gold Access

  • The final version of an article is freely and permanently accessible for everyone, immediately after publication.

  • In the gold OA model, the publisher makes all articles and related content available for free immediately on the journal's website. In such publications, articles are licensed for sharing and reuse via Creative Commons licenses or similar. No subscription fees are charged for any part of a journal that is fully gold open access.

    Many gold OA publishers charge an article processing charge (APC), which is typically paid through institutional or grant funding. The majority of gold open access journals charging APCs follow an "author-pays" model, although this is not an intrinsic property of gold OA.

Diamond/Platinum Access

  • Journals that publish open access without charging authors article processing charges are sometimes referred to as diamond or platinum OA.
  • Since they do not charge either readers or authors directly, such publishers often require funding from external sources such as the sale of advertisements, academic institutions, learned societies, philanthropists or government grants. 
  • There are now over 350 platinum OA journals with impact factors over a wide variety of academic disciplines, giving most academics options for OA with no APCs.Diamond OA journals are available for most disciplines, and are usually small (<25 articles per year) and more likely to be multilingual (38%); thousands of such journals exist.