Open Access (OA) publishing is a model that allows researchers to make their work freely available to the public, ensuring that anyone can read, download, and share their research without subscription barriers. This approach enhances the visibility and impact of your research, as it reaches a broader audience, including other researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public. Open Access can increase citations, foster greater collaboration, and accelerate the dissemination of knowledge across disciplines. This infographic, provided by Cambridge University Press, highlights some of the advantages of OA publishing.
Cowles Library also provides support for publishing Open Educational Resources (OER). See our Open Educational Resources page for details.
Articles are made immediately available to the public by the publisher upon publication. This model provides immediate access to the research, ensuring maximum visibility and impact, but usually involves an Article Processing Charge (APC) paid by the author or their institution.
Examples of Gold OA are PLOS ONE, BioMed Central, and many journals in the SpringerOpen collection.
Authors self-archive a version of their manuscript (pre-print or post-print) in an institutional repository such as eScholarShare, subject repository, or personal website. This is typically done without additional cost. Green OA offers a cost-effective way to provide open access, although there may be an embargo period set by the publisher before the manuscript can be made publicly available.
Examples of Green OA can be found in repositories like arXiv or PubMed Central.
Hybrid OA journals operate on a subscription basis but offer authors the option to make individual articles open access upon payment of an APC. This provides flexibility for authors who wish to make their work openly accessible while publishing in traditional subscription-based journals.
An increasing number of journals from traditional publishers like Wiley, Elsevier, and Taylor & Francis offer a Hybrid OA option.
Articles are freely available to the public upon publication, at no cost to the authors. The costs of publishing are covered by institutions, societies, or grants.
Cowles Library has negotiated Read & Publish agreements with three publishers to provide expanded access to their journals and waive Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Drake Authors.
Our Read & Publish Agreement provides unlimited access to all Company of Biologists journals (dating back to 1853), and waives APC for all Drake authors to publish Open Access articles under a CC BY Creative Commons open license.
Visit the Company of Biologists step-by-step guide to publishing Open Access research articles.
Cowles Library's agreement provides access to ~475 Cambridge University Press journals, increasing our access by more than 450 titles for about 1% of the subscription price. All APCs are waived for Drake-affiliated authors.
See this step-by-step guide to publishing Open Access in Cambridge University Press journals.
By subscribing to the Iowa Statewide Oxford Read & Publish Agreement, Cowles Library is able to offer access to more than 300 Oxford journals, with access dating back to 1996. As with the other agreements, all APCs are waived for Drake-affiliated authors.
More information about Oxford's Read & Publish agreements.
Find your favorite journal's open access policy and what you are permitted to do with your article post-publication by searching the Sherpa Romeo database.
You can also search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and use the "Without fees" filter to find journals that do not charge APCs.
Another option is to search Google for <journal title> open access or <publisher name> open access to see what OA models may apply.
This a partial list of Open Access archives in various disciplines.
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