What Is Open Access?

Open access (OA) is a set of standards and practices for disseminating research findings online without charge or other obstacles to access. Barriers to copying or reuse are also lowered or eliminated when open access is tightly defined or free open access. "Peer-reviewed scholarly literature" is the primary focus of the open access movement. This has traditionally been limited to scholarly journals published in print. Open-access journals are distinguished by funding models that do not require readers to pay to read the journal's components or that depend on public funding, as opposed to traditional journals, which cover publishing costs through access tolls including subscriptions, site licenses, or pay-per-view charges. Peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, monographs, research reports, and pictures are all examples of published research output that can be made open access.

Types Of Open Access Journals

There are several open access publishing models, and publishers may employ one or more of them. Currently, different sorts of open access are often characterized using a color scheme. The most well-known terminology for open access are "green," "gold," and "hybrid," but there are a variety of additional models and terminologies to consider.

Gold Open Access: The publisher under the gold OA model makes all articles and related information available free on the journal's website right away. Publications in these periodicals are licensed for sharing and exchange under creative commons licenses or identical licenses. While this is not an inherent aspect of gold OA, the majority of gold open access journals that charge article processing fees are claimed to follow a "author-pays" model.

Green Open Access: Green OA allows writers to self-archive their work. The author also publishes the work to a website managed by the author, the research organization that financed or hosted the work, or to an independent body open repository, where anybody can obtain the work for free. The author receives Green OA absolutely free. Some publishers may charge a price for an extra service, such as a free license on the publisher-authored copyright protected elements of the printed edition of a publication. The archived version of a writer's work is dubbed a "postprint" if the author shares the close version of their work following peer review by a journal. This might be the accepted article that has been returned to the author by the journal following successful peer review.

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Hybrid Open Access: Open-access and closed-access papers are published in hybrid open-access journals. This strategy requires a publisher to be partially supported by subscription fees and only give open access to papers for which the authors (or research sponsor) pay a publishing fee. Hybrid OA is often more expensive than gold OA and may provide a poorer level of service. "Double dipping," in which both authors and subscribers are taxed, is a particularly contentious practice in hybrid open-access publications.

Bronze Open Access: Bronze OA articles are only available to read on the publisher's website and do not have a clear license. In most cases, such articles cannot be reused.

Diamond or Platinum Open Access: Diamond or platinum open access journals are those that publish open access without charging authors article processing fees. Because they do not charge readers or writers directly, such publishers must rely on outside sources for revenue, such as ad sales, academic institutions, learned organizations, benefactors, or government subsidies. Diamond open access journals cover a wide range of fields, are usually tiny, and are therefore more likely to be multidisciplinary.

Open Access Benefits

There are several advantages to publishing open access.

• Open access publications are seen and referenced more frequently than articles behind a barrier, according to studies.
• Those who do not have access to subscription material can access the content.
• Open access publications that span various fields make it easier for scholars to collaborate and make their work more visible.
• Researchers can conduct worldwide collaborative research using open access articles and data.
• Researchers may readily expand on current research using liberal licenses like CC BY.

Conclusion

Open Access implies that everyone has better access to research. Increased readers, possible collaborators, citations for their work, and eventually more acknowledgements for researchers and their institution.

About The Authors

Suleman Shah - Suleman Shah is a researcher and freelance writer. As a researcher, he has worked with MNS University of Agriculture, Multan (Pakistan) and Texas A & M University (USA). He regularly writes science articles and blogs for science news website immersse.com and open access publishers OA Publishing London and Scientific Times. He loves to keep himself updated on scientific developments and convert these developments into everyday language to update the readers about the developments in the scientific era. His primary research focus is Plant sciences, and he contributed to this field by publishing his research in scientific journals and presenting his work at many Conferences. Shah graduated from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) and started his professional carrier with Jaffer Agro Services and later with the Agriculture Department of the Government of Pakistan. His research interest compelled and attracted him to proceed with his carrier in Plant sciences research. So, he started his Ph.D. in Soil Science at MNS University of Agriculture Multan (Pakistan). Later, he started working as a visiting scholar with Texas A&M University (USA). Shah’s experience with big Open Excess publishers like Springers, Frontiers, MDPI, etc., testified to his belief in Open Access as a barrier-removing mechanism between researchers and the readers of their research. Shah believes that Open Access is revolutionizing the publication process and benefitting research in all fields.