Most scholarly information enters Open Access through one of three 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.
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 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 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.
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.
