Open Access: how?

There are two main routes to achieve Open Access (OA) for scholarly publications: 'green' and 'gold'.

Open Access logo Ghent University does not mandate any specific route, but leaves researchers free to choose.

More about Ghent University policy on scholarly publishing (see section 'Open Access')

Deposit in a repository ('green' OA)

This is also known as 'self-archiving'.

You publish in the venue of your choice, and deposit a digital copy of your publication in an online repository, where you make it publicly accessible.

Use the institutional repository Biblio to provide green OA to your Ghent University publications.

For this route, keep in mind that

  • You need to have sufficient rights, or permission from the rights holder(s), to make a full text OA in Biblio.

  • If you transferred or exclusively licenced to a publisher the economic rights granted to you by copyright, your ability to decide how to use your own work (including making it publicly available via a repository) will be severely limited.

  • An embargo period may be applicable.

  • You are likely not allowed to provide OA to the publisher version (Version of Record) if the original publication is behind a paywall.

  • You can make the Version of Record publicly available in Biblio for publications published directly in OA with a Creative Commons licence or equivalent.

  • You always retain the right (thanks to Belgian OA legislation) to make the Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version of scientific journal articles publicly available in Biblio, but only after an embargo period of 6 to 12 months (the maximum embargo depends on the scientific discipline).

  • You should check your publishing agreement, the journal/publisher's website, and/or the SherpaRomeo database of journals' self-archiving permissions to determine if you can make full texts other than journal AAMs available in OA.

Publish directly in OA

You can also publish directly in OA via an OA journal, publisher or publishing platform.

The publisher version (Version of Record) of your publication is then immediately available to the public at no cost, with a license imposing no or few restrictions on reuse.

Various business models

As OA publishing abolishes paywalls, publishers seek alternative sources of income. Different business models exist:

  • Gold OA: authors (or their institutions or research funders) pay an OA publication fee, often called an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Processing Charge (BPC).
  • Hybrid OA: used by subscription-based journals offering optional OA publishing of individual articles against payment of an APC. Such journals charge both readers (for paywalled content) and authors (for OA content): a practice known as 'double dipping'.
  • Diamond OA: journals and publishing platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers, but are subsidized by a third party (e.g. a funding agency or a library consortium). Diamond OA publishing initiatives are often non-profit, community-driven and scholar-led.
Ghent University policy requires you to deposit a digital copy of most types of scholarly publication in Biblio. This also applies for publications already published directly in OA, to ensure their long-term preservation.

Costs of OA publishing

Making your work available in Open Access does not necessarily imply (significant) costs.
Where you choose to publish will determine which OA route is available to you, and at what (if any) cost.

If you publish in a subscription journal

The institutional repository Biblio offers a cost-free way to make your Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) publicly available (after embargo).

If you publish in a full OA journal or platform

  • Many OA journals and publishing platforms do not charge APCs (Article Processing Charges). The number of non-APC options available to you may, however, depend on your field of research.
  • For APC-based journals and platforms, the fees can vary widely (ranging from a few hundred to thousands of euros), and pricing is not always very transparent. High impact factor journals of major for-profit publishers tend to have the highest APCs.

Check what (if any) publication fees are charged via the Directory of Open Access Journals

If you publish in a hybrid journal

  • Pay an APC to immediately publish your article in OA.
  • Or publish your article in the traditional way and make the AAM publicly available (after embargo) via Biblio at no cost.

If you publish a book

  • Use Biblio as a cost-free route to OA if your publisher does not offer an OA publishing option. You may only be allowed to make a chapter available, however, and an embargo period may be applicable.
  • Some publishers of OA books charge BPCs (Book Processing Charges). Fees vary depending on the publisher, but can be very high (especially in case of established publishers).
  • Some publishers are funded by a third-party and do not charge BPCs for publishing your book in Open Access.

How to pay for OA publishing

Ghent University does NOT have a central fund to pay for researchers' OA publishing costs, nor any deals with publishers to cover all or part of those costs.
The University does, however, support OA routes that come without costs to researchers.
  • OA publishing fees are an eligible cost for many external research funders. Some do not allow expense claims for OA fees in hybrid journals, however.
  • For some journals, APC waivers exist for authors without funding to pay for APCs.
  • You can apply for financial support from the University Foundation to cover publishing costs for scientific books, journals, and journal articles.
  • You can pay for OA publishing costs from any bench fees allocated to you.

Finding a trusted OA publishing venue

Many publishing venues are available to choose from. Selecting a reliable journal or publisher that meets accepted quality criteria is crucial.

OA journals and publishers are not inherently less trustworthy than their counterparts in the toll access publication model.
Questionable journals and publishers are active in both OA and traditional scholarly publishing.

Predatory publishing practices

The author-pays business model of OA has unfortunately been exploited by 'predatory' journals and publishers, which put (commercial) self-interest before scientific interests. Publishing with such venues can damage an author's scientific reputation.

Common predatory practices include charging OA publishing fees without providing proper editorial services such as peer review, and using aggressive methods to solicit contributions from authors.

A 2022 IAP report concludes that there is a wide spectrum of predatory practices, which can also occur in journals that are not fraudulent.

[There is] a broad set of dynamic predatory behaviours that range from genuinely fraudulent and deceitful practices (...) to questionable and unethical ones, with varying degrees of unacceptable to well-intentioned low-quality practices in the middle. (...) They can be committed by new and established, fraudulent and reputable, traditional and Open Access publishers, anywhere in the world. (Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences, p. 7)

Some tips to minimise risk

Instead of (exclusively) relying on a blacklist or 'safe' list, do some research. Use and cross-check the following resources to evaluate trustworthiness:

 

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