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.”
Pre-print platforms support Green Open Access. Most pre-print platforms are STEM based but there is one significant platform for the humanities and at least one significant server in the social sciences. What follows is a list of the more prominent pre-print platforms. Pre-prints are usually completed research (as opposed to work in progress) but have not been peer reviewed. In many cases, 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.
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.
OAPEN promotes the transition to open access for academic books through providing open infrastructure and by working with publishers to create a quality-controlled collection of books. OAPEN also provides services for libraries, publishers, and research funders in areas such as hosting, disseminating, and preserving digital books.
OAPEN has also developed a toolkit for scholars considering publishing their work open access. it includes content supporting different steps along the research lifecycle, further reading and FAQ, definitions, and key terms.
Of potential interest:
Common myths about open access
Why publish an open access book
Green, Gold, and Diamond are notable models of OA publishing that describe how you make your scholarship openly accessible and the costs (or lack thereof) associated with it. Open Access publications may be accessed through a journal or publisher, through an author's personal website, or through other openly accessible platforms. The Sherpa Romeo database and the Directory of Open Access Journals platform provide information about the type of open access provided by individual journals.
VISIT OUR GUIDE TO NAVIGATING OUR OPEN ACCESS AGREEMENTS WITH MAJOR PUBLISHERS
Although the Penn Libraries does not have funding to support APCs (author processing charges) to publish in open access journals, if you are looking to publish in an open access journal, all of the journals listed below have received subscription or membership support from the Penn Libraries, which should allow you to publish without a fee or at a reduced fee. Please contact your subject librarian for more information. This list will likely continue to evolve:
The Penn Libraries have partnered with other NERL libraries to establish a three year pilot through which authors who have published with many Elsevier journals and who were affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania at the time of publication will retroactively have their articles made open access. For each year of the agreement, Elsevier will flip five years of publications.
By the end of the pilot, 15 years of published work, constituting tens of thousands of articles authored by leading researchers, will be newly available to everyone at no cost to them and regardless of institutional affiliation.
For more information visit our Elsevier FAQ
*Or another Institution connected with the NERL negotiated agreement.
