There are two primary vehicles for delivering OA:
OA archives or repositories per se do not perform peer review but make their contents freely available to the world. They may contain unrefereed preprints, technical reports etc., and refereed postprints and, often a combination of these. Archives may belong to institutions, such as universities and laboratories, or be based on subjects (examples: physics and economics). Authors may archive their preprints without anyone else's permission. Most journals permit authors to archive their final referred, corrected copy (postprints) See Institutional Repositories.
On the other hand, OA journals perform peer review and make the approved contents freely available to the world. Frequently, journals charge Article Processing Charges (APCs), on average about $2500, to authors to publish their articles open access. Frequently authors' institutions pay these charges - see this page on funding for CSULB faculty.
Reasons to publish in an Open Access (OA) journal:
- Make your research and data freely available to meet the requirements of funders like the NSF
- Find an OA journal in a specialized area not covered by traditional scholarly journals
- Make your research easily accessible to your fellow researchers worldwide
- Open access journals tend to receive more citations, according to evidence
Reasons NOT to publish in an OA journal:
- You have applied for a patent
- Be mindful of your department or college's policies if you are aiming for tenure and/or promotion
Apply for funding (CSULB Faculty only)
Cambridge University Press Journals - after you add country and institution, you will get a list of journals
ACS (American Chemical Society) Agreement
