Services for Authors at the Penn Libraries

Open access (OA) works are available to readers without cost or legal barriers – they can be freely read and freely shared. OA publications may be accessed through a journal or publisher, through an author's personal website, or through other openly accessible platforms.

Open Access and Copyright

Every piece of original, fixed expression is subject to copyright unless the author intentionally dedicates it to the Public Domain. When making a work open access, authors or publishers will typically select a license to specify how that work can be used -- even potentially remixed and reused. See our copyright guide and our tab on Creative Commons licensing for more information on copyright and sharing your work.

Open Access Venues and Quality

As with any publisher, check open access publishers for their editorial process, which should be outlined on their website. For journals, check to see if the work will be peer reviewed. Ask your mentors and colleagues about a journal if you are unfamiliar with it.  To learn more about determining journal quality, take a look at our tab for evaluating journal platforms.

Open Science

2023 definition from the OSTP and the National Science and Technology Council: “The principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility, and equity.” 

Open access is free to read, not necessarily free to publish

While OA works are free to read, they may not be free to publish for authors. Below are four common OA publishing models. Each describes a way to make your scholarship openly accessible.

• Green Open Access

  • There is no fee for you to publish or for your audience to read. Green includes
    •  Free-to-publish in and read journals
    • Posting a copy of your scholarship in an institutional repository (Penn's repository is called ScholarlyCommons),
    • Posting to your own website
    • Posting to one of the many preprint platforms.
  • Publishers will vary on where, what and whether they allow authors to post (preprints or version of record; immediately or after an embargo).
    • This is something to keep in mind when you are signing contracts or reviewing your existing contracts.

• Gold Open Access

  • This designation is used when a journal funds its open access model by charging the author a fee.
    • This fee is often referred to as an APC or "article processing charge."
    • Authors whose work is grant-funded may have the open-access publishing fee covered as part of the grant.
    • Although GOLD Open Access exists across all disciplines, it is more typical in STEM fields than in Humanities or Social Science fields.

• Diamond or Platinum Open Access

  • These newer OA models receive funding from grants, institutions, professional societies, or foundations
  • Diamond OA journals are free to publish and free to read. 
  • Many libraries work with scholarly societies and not-for-profit publishers to help support Diamond open access

• Hybrid

  • This term is used when a subscription based journal (libraries or individuals subscribe to the journal for a fee) offers publishing behind a paywall or openly accessible in the same journal

Initiatives 

• Budapest Open Access Initiative
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access
• Federal Mandates: NIH Public Access Policy and PubMed Central
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Budapest Open Access Initiative 15
• OSTP, "The Nelson Memo," on federal mandate for immediate open access

Please refer to our guide to navigating our open access agreements with major publishers.

• Journals can be completely open access--all articles are free to read (PLOS, e-life, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews). Some of these journals
  • Charge a fee to authors (or to their research grants),
  • Charge subscriptions to libraries, but are free to read, (also called "subscribe to open"); and some
  • Are free in all senses of the term--free to authors, free to readers, free to libraries (although sometimes sponsored by libraries or academic departments).
• Journals can be subscription based but offer the option of open access for a fee. These journals are often referred to as "hybrid" journals.
• Journals can be subscription based but allow authors to post their pre-prints publicly.

The Sherpa Romeo database and the Directory of Open Access Journals platform provide information about the type of open access provided by individual journals.

Check out our Quick Guide to Publishing Open Access at Penn zine, published spring 2025 by Penn Libraries:

Links within the zine:

• ScholarlyCommons, Penn's institutional repository
• Penn's open access publishing agreements
• Services for Authors Guide
• Contact your subject librarian

Pre-print platforms support Green Open Access.

• Most pre-print platforms are STEM based but there is one significant platform for the humanities and several servers in the social sciences.
• Often, journals allows authors to post the pre-print of their accepted (post-peer reviewed) article. In this case, you would also find a link to the published journal at the journal site
• Check Sherpa Romeo or the journal website to find their policy on posting pre-preprints
• Many grant funders now accept peer reviewed preprints as part of a grant proposal
• See below for a list of pre-print platforms

Evidence of growing support for pre-prints as evidence of successful scholarship

• As of January 1 2025, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will implement what they are calling a policy refresh.  This refresh will  require preprints and encourage preprint review, and they will no longer support APCs. Read their one page summary of the plan. 
• In January of 2024, elife will only review research that has been posted as a preprint and they will publish them as "reviewed preprints" with a publicly posted peer review along with a response from the author. Learn more about elife's publishing model and their editorial process. 

Peer Community In -- peercommunityin.org​

• Nonprofit organization of researchers offering peer review​
• Reviewers provide full peer review and revision​
• A successful review makes the paper a “complete, reliable and citable article,” without the need for publication in ‘traditional’ journals.​
• Post in Peer Community Journal or submit to one of 100 Peer Community In friendly journals or with another journal, maintaining your Peer Community In recommendation 

PreReview – prereview.org​

• Audience = early career and historically excluded scholars  ​
• Addresses lack of transparency and inequitable access in traditional closed model  ​
• Provides a positive and constructive peer review process​
• Trains researchers in giving and receiving feedback, provides mentoring ​
• Goal of equal access​
• Furthers the building of connections and collaborations, creates a rewarding peer review experience  ​
• Programs of “live review sessions”  ​
• Reviews published on prereview.org

Review Commons -- https://www.reviewcommons.org ​

• Connected with EMBO, a not for profit active since 1964​
• Journal independent peer review ​
• Allow reviewers to focus on the science, not specific journal fit.​
• Enrich the value of preprints.​
• Reduce re-reviewing at multiple journals.​
• Accelerate the publishing process by providing journals with high-quality refereed reports.​
• Refereed preprints are posted to BioRxiv.
• Submit refereed preprint sequentially to the 21+ affiliated journals 

Open Monographs

OAPEN promotes the transition to open access for academic books working together with libraries, publishers, and research funders to  host, disseminate, and preserve digital books. 

See OAPEN's OA Books Toolkit if you are considering publishing your book open access.

Chapters include the glossary and Why publish an open access book 

Peer Review and OA monographs

Most publishers are publishing some open access monographs. They will go through the same peer review process as the non-open-access titles.

Directory of Open Access Books works with publisher to make their peer review process transparent. Look for the PRISM designation.