Open Access Publication

Table of contents
  1. What you need to know
  2. Introduction
  3. Find Open Access journals
  4. Institutional funds & waivers
  5. Green OA: Preprint servers
  6. Other

What you need to know

If you are affiliated with the University of Edinburgh, you are entitled to publishing Gold Open Access without cost with journals that the University has a read-and-publish deal with. These include virtually all reputable journals across subjects. With Gold OA, full access to your article and accompanying materials will be given to the public for free. To check whether the journal you are looking to publish at has a deal with the university, check the following:

Check if we have a read and publish deal with your chosen journal

If the journal appears when you search on the above link, then you can publish there for free, and it will be available for reading with no paywalls.

If you would like to learn more about open access, you are welcome to continue reading!

Introduction

Open access publication is a movement to have free and open access to academic information, which have traditionally been hidden behind paywalls. This often meant that the original academic source was not available to the general public, and instead was only accessible through subscriptions (typically through libraries/academic institutions).

Open access publication is organised into a colour-system, with Green and Gold the most commonly mentioned.

  • Green OA: the article is published in a traditional toll-access journal, but is also self-archived on an open access repository (such as PsyArXiv)

  • Gold OA: the article is published in an open access journal under a Creative Commons license, with complete access to the article and any related content (think supplementary materials/data). Article-processing charges (APCs) may be applied.

  • Diamond/Platinum OA: similar to gold OA, articles are instantly available open-access, however no APCs are applied.

  • Hybrid OA: the articles published here are usually a mix of open- and closed-access. To ensure open-access, there is a publication fee (usually to the author/research sponsor)

Find Open Access journals

If you’re affiliated with the university, check if the university has a read-and-publish deal with your journal (works for all subjects!): https://lac-edwebtools.is.ed.ac.uk/oapubjournals/. If it appears on the list, you can publish Gold OA for free.

You can also find journals that are open-access by default and individual journals’ policies at the following links:

Institutional funds & waivers

Green OA: Preprint servers

Other

  • All non-embargoed doctoral theses will be published on ERA