Open Access Guide

Two Methods of Open Access

Most scholarly information enters Open Access through one of two methods:

1) Open Access Gold: publication in an open access journal, also known as Open Access Gold. This method of OA requires that authors or their institutions article processing charges (APCs). Examples of Gold OA include PLOS (Public Library of Science) and BioMed Central

2) Open Access Green: deposit article (aka "self-archiving") in an institutional repository, author's website, or other archival location. UNM's institutional repository is the Digital Repository.

3) Open Access Diamond: these are open access journals that do not charge authors or their institutions article processing charges.  


Here's a visual to explain the difference:

The above graphic is created by Darren Chase at the Stony Brook University Library and licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.

Details about OA Publishing

OA Journals

Gold open access means that a publication is immediately provided in open access mode through a high-quality open access publication channel, that is, an open access journal. In this case, the publisher is responsible for providing the article in open access mode immediately. The publisher may charge an open access fee (article processing charge).

Hybrid Journals

Hybrid open access refers to a combination of subscription-based and free-of-charge publishing. This means that the author pays a fee (APC) determined by the publisher to make the article freely available. Otherwise the journal is only available to readers who have paid the subscription fee. Some hybrid journals allow for Green Open Access publishing in a researcher's institutional repository or on their own webpage. Sites like OpenDOAR can help researchers identify the Open Access policies of thousands of journals.

Diamond / Platinum Open Access Journals

Diamond / Platinum OA Journals refer to open access journals that don't charge any author fees (APC - Article Processing Charges). They are usually financed by a university or research organization.

Open Access Repositories

Articles from open access journals are "born digital" documents. Usually no print copy is produced, even for archival purposes. Some OA journals utilize electronic archival programs like LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) to help ensure that articles are accessible even in the event of a publisher server failure.

LOCKSS works by allowing institutions that subscribe to a journal (usually libraries) to archive a copy on a specially configured server. Under a traditional for-profit publishing model enforced by license agreements that transfer intellectual property rights to the publisher, negotiating permission to use LOCKSS can be a challenge. However, open access publishers - especially those that use Creative Commons - are in an ideal position to take advantage of LOCKSS.

Additionally, down below, you will also find links to Open Access repositories that store OA research.

Why Two Google Scholar Links?

The Open Access logo, the orange lock, tells you the first is completely open. When you search the completely open version of Google Scholar, some articles are unavailable, but their abstracts are open. The benefit of using this link is that even if you don't have an active account to log into UNM Libraries, you can still use Google to do a focused search for scholarly work.

The second Google Scholar link with the UNM logo next to it is for UNM students, faculty, and staff. That link requires users to log in with an active UNM username and password. The benefit of this link is that when UNM users search, they can also access paywalled articles from the UNM University Libraries. 

OER Librarian

Profile Photo
Jennifer Jordan
she / her / ella

Fall Online Office Hours
Wednesdays 10 a.m. - noon


NM OER Grant Program

Interested in OER as faculty?

Head over to the OER Grant Program Libguide for information about how the New Mexico OER Consortium can support your work.

Open Journal Systems

Converting to Open Access