Open Access Publishing

Open access describes online access to information that is free of cost and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Some commonly used open access terms include:

• Green open access: when authors self-archive their works, for example, by adding a preprint to a disciplinary archive or sharing a post-print in an institutional repository like VCU Scholars Compass
• Gold open access: when all of a journal's articles are published open access
• Hybrid open access: when a journal offers an open access publishing option for individual articles
• Preprint: the version of a scholarly work submitted for peer review or shared on a preprint repository before/alongside submission
• Post-print: also known as the author accepted manuscript, this version has incorporated all changes from peer review but has not yet been copyedited and formatted for final publication

Open access:

• Promotes accelerated discovery, allowing researchers to read and build on findings without delay or restriction
• Removes paywall barriers, enabling more equitable access for students and researchers throughout the world
• Satisfies requirement of many public and private funding agencies to make articles freely available

Learn more about the benefits of open access from SPARC Impact Stories.

What is the Problem? Infographic. Content by Jill Cirasella and Graphic Design by Les LaRue, 
used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.