Common Misconceptions
OA is low quality research
There are many high-quality Open Access books and journals on the market that encourage rigorous peer-review processes and publish to a high standard.
If you are submitting to an OA journal, it's important to assess the quality of an the journal before submitting. You can do this by asking yourself the following questions:
- Is the journal reputable? You can check this by looking at the journal’s impact factor, the reputation of its editorial board, and its indexing in major databases
- What is the licensing agreement? OA journals often require authors to sign a licensing agreement that determines how their work can be used and distributed. Quality OA journals will have a clear and understandable licensing agreement
- What is the journal’s peer review process?
- What does the journal’s finance and fees model look like? These should be clearly stated upfront
- Do all OA articles have an assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier)?
- Does the journal have a well-defined subject area?
You can also check if the journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and if publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher Association. There is guidance on how to avoid predatory OA publishers in our guide to writing a journal article.
If you are looking to publish an OA book or chapter within a book, take a look at the publisher's existing catalogue of OA books and their commitments to OA publishing as a whole. Look for the following:
- Are manuscripts reviewed, copy-edited and typeset to the usual standards of a printed, non-OA book?
- Does the publisher explain the embargo period?
- Do the publisher fees line up in comparison to other publishers (i.e. make sure they are not charging over the odds!)?
- Does the publisher explain your copyright and recommend a licence, e.g. the CC-BY-NC licence?
- Does the publisher explain how OA are distributed? Do they go into detail about metadata, indexing systems, and availability on the publisher website?
- Is the submission process clear?
OA is free for everyone
While OA does mean that content is freely available to anyone, it does not necessarily mean that is free for everyone. Processing charges (Article, Chapter, Book) are charged to authors to cover the cost of publishing their work (if the journal is not Diamond Open Access).
OA can also refer to research that is made freely available through repositories or institutional archives, which may not have any associated fees (Green Open Access).
While OA aims to make research freely available to all, there may still be costs associated with it, either for the author or for the institution hosting the research.
OA is Open Source
Open Access and Open source share similarities in terms of promoting openness and accessibility, but they are not the same thing.
Open Access (OA) refers to the practice of making academic research freely available online. This means that anyone can access, read, download, copy, and share the research, without having to pay for it or ask for permission from the publisher.
Open Source refers to the practice of making software code available for anyone to access, modify, and distribute. Open source software is typically developed and maintained by a community of contributors who collaborate to improve the code and share their changes with others.
OA is a journals-only model
OA can apply to lots of different types of scholarly publications, not just journals! While OA journals are a more common example and widely talked about when discussing OA, open access can also apply to books, conference proceedings, data sets, and other research outputs.
Processing charges are needed to publish OA
While APCs, CPCs and BPCs are one way to fund OA research, they’re not the only way. There are several modes of open access publishing, and not all of them require processing charges.
Green Open Access, for example, involves depositing a version of the research in a repository such as an institutional repository or a subject-specific repository. This can be done for free or at a very low cost.
There are also various funding options and opportunities available to authors who need help covering the costs of processing charges. These can include institutional funds, grants, and funding from organisations that support OA publishing.
OA research is not peer-reviewed
Reputable OA publishers will indeed have a rigorous peer-review process in place. These are often the same, or at least very similar, to subscription-based models.
OA research is not copyrighted
OA research is, typically, still under copyright, but the terms may vary depending on the specific open access license under which the content is published – which is why it’s important to read the terms and conditions carefully before deciding to submit.
