Open Access Publishing

For help with identifying and evaluating journals, contact the library liaison for your subject area or the Scholarly Communications Librarian, or visit one of our other guides to learn how to:

Authors have multiple options to make their articles open access:

• Gold open access journals: when all of a journal's articles are published open access
• Hybrid open access journals: when a journal offers an open access publishing option for individual articles, subject to a publishing fee
• 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

Most journals allow some form of self-archiving, depending on what version of the article is shared and where it is shared.

• Preprint: the version that is submitted for peer review, which can usually be posted to preprint sites for early dissemination and peer review.
• Post-print: also known as the accepted manuscript, this version has incorporated all changes from peer review but has not yet been copyedited and formatted for final publication. Journals often allow this version to be shared on personal websites or institutional repositories like VCU Scholars Compass, usually subject to an embargo period.
• Version of record: the version that is published on the journal website. All other versions should link to this version. Unless the article is open access, sharing is restricted.

Many publisher websites and journal indexes allow you to search or filter for open access journals. Other ways to find open access publishing options include: