What is "Open Access"?
Open access (OA) refers to the ability to freely access a scholarly article from anywhere in the world, without the need for a journal subscription or payment by the reader to access the item. OA materials are hosted in various places including: institutional, disciplinary and government repositories; pre-print archives; non-profit and for-profit journals that are either entirely OA or hybrid (some articles OA, others behind a paywall). Open access by itself is not an indication of information quality; OA is fully compatible with peer-review, high quality editing and publishing.
Open Access variations include green, gold, diamond, bronze, and hybrid. See "Open Access colours: green, gold, diamond, hybrid and more" for brief explanations of each.
Mandates exist from some governmental and other entities that results of research they fund must be published open access.
Open Access Basics
OA materials materials may be hosted in various places including: institutional, disciplinary and government repositories; pre-print archives; non-profit and for-profit journals that are either entirely OA or hybrid (some articles OA, others behind a paywall); large repositories such as HathiTrust and the Internet Archive. Open access by itself is not an indication of information quality; OA is fully compatible with peer-review and high quality editing and publishing.
Open Access variations include green, gold, diamond, bronze, and hybrid. See "Open Access colours: green, gold, diamond, hybrid and more" for brief explanations of each.
Mandates exist from some governmental and other entities that results of research they fund must be published open access.
- Open Access Explained! 8:23 min videoFrom Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics), explains why open access publishing is important to increase equity of access to research.
- Paywall: The Business of Scholarship. 1:04:48 filmDocumentary produced and directed by Jason Schmitt, Clarkson University, 2018. Discusses the economics of publishing and advocates for open access.
Open Access at Dickinson College
- Funding for Open Access Authors' FeesA program that provides funding of open access author charges for publication in a reputable, fully-open access journal. Certain restrictions apply. This Library fund is administered in collaboration with the faculty Research & Development Committee. To request funding, faculty members should apply to the R&D Committee.NOTE: It is possible to negotiate the amount of OA publication fees. Ask the publisher if the fee can be reduced.
Open Access (OA) Fee Waivers (Transformative or "Read & Publish" Agreements)
The library subscriptions to these journal publisher packages include provision for waiving open access publication fees (article processing charges) for most types of articles. A Dickinson faculty/staff member must be the corresponding/submitting author (please use your Dickinson email address when submitting your article), and the article must be accepted through the journal's established peer-review and editorial process. You should be prompted during the online submission process to confirm that you wish to publish OA and claim your fee waiver, or in some cases this will be offered to you in your notification of acceptance. We will add to this list if more such agreements become available.
Questions? Contact Theresa Arndt, Assoc. Dean for Collections and Discovery (arndtt@dickinson.edu).
- American Chemical Society journals (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2025)
- American Journal of Physiology (AJP) Titles - for 7 titles in the 'consolidated' package only - Corresponding authors at Dickinson for articles published in 2025 volumes (even if submitted in 2024) will be able to publish open access in all 7 "AJP Consolidated" journals. FAQ.
- American Society for Microbiology - starting in 2025 for 6 (six) primary research journals only. No OA fees for Dickinson authors, 25% discount on page charges (if author also a personal ASM member, page charge discount is 50%), other publication fees may still apply. More details on publisher website.
- Annual Reviews - those journals currently on the "Subscribe to Open" eligibility list have no OA fees for any authors, funded by multiple libraries' collective ongoing subscription payments
- Cambridge University Press journals (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2025). Use the CUP waivers and discount tools for details and eligible journals list. (Through Lyrasis library consortia.)
- Company of Biologists - 5 journal package (starting in Spring 2023) See details at: https://www.biologists.com/library-hub/read-publish/
- Demography, Duke University Press - The library is a Subscribe to Open (S2O) Community Partner. Corresponding authors who are affiliated with S2O subscribing institutions are guaranteed to be open access in perpetuity.
- Institute of Physics (IOP) journals, eligible Journals List A, B and D (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2025). Dickinson is part of the Lyrasis consortia deal; details and eligible titles are at https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/researchers-from-the-united-states/
- PLOS (Public Library of Science), all journals - No open access fees for Dickinson corresponding authors during 2025 and 2026. Simply indicate your affiliation and use your Dickinson email address during the submission process. See list of journals at: https://plos.org/your-journal-options/
- Springer and Nature "academic" journals (2024-2027) See details for authors including list of eligible journals at: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/oa-agreements/lyrasis
- Dickinson Scholar This link opens in a new windowDickinson College's open access institutional repository, featuring scholarly and creative works by Dickinson faculty, administrators, staff and students. Email scholar@dickinson.edu with questions or to submit your work.
Questions about open access at Dickinson?
Email scholar@dickinson.edu
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. The mission of HathiTrust is to contribute to research, scholarship, and the common good by collaboratively collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, and sharing the record of human knowledge. Dickinson is one of more than 120 partners in HathiTrust.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowAccess magazines, journals, and newspapers of alternative press archives. Collections include Black American, Campus Underground, Feminist, GI Press, LGBT, Latino, Little (literary) Magazine, Native American and Right-Wing publications. Coverage: second half of 20th century, contains primary sources. Full text.
- Knowledge UnlatchedIn this not-for-profit model, libraries from around the world shared the payment of a single Title Fee to a publisher, in return for a new book being made available on a Creative Commons license via OAPEN and HathiTrust as a fully downloadable PDF. The Title Fee represents the basic cost of publishing a book. Over 100 scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences have been made freely available through the support of hundreds of libraries worldwide.
- Open Library of Humanities This link opens in a new window"Open Library of Humanities offers a new, extremely cost-effective and equitable business model for journals to achieve gold open access in the humanities sphere...The OLH is supported by a consortium of libraries who all share the cost. In this way, we can fairly pay for the labor of publishing on a not-for-profit basis while also ensuring that anyone whose work meets the high-standards of peer review can be published with no author fee."
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new windowWaidner-Spahr Library membership fees support ongoing open access to the web version.
Questions about open access at Dickinson?
Email scholar@dickinson.edu
Maintain Your Author Rights
Organizations supporting open access publishing
Caveat Emptor - Predatory Publishers
See the Avoiding Predatory Publishers tab on this guide.