Open Access Publishing

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.

Open Access Models

Gold OA

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.

Green OA

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

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.

Diamond/Platinum OA

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.

Fee-Free Publishing for Drake Authors

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.

Company of Biologists

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.

Cambridge University Press

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.

Oxford University Press

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.

Finding Open Access Policies

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.

Open Access Repositories & Directories

This a partial list of Open Access archives in various disciplines.

General

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - A directory of peer-reviewed journals that operate with a fully open access model.
• Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) - Aggregates high-quality academic research by aggregating peer-reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.
• Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) - The aim of ROAR is to promote the development of open access by providing timely information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world.

Humanities

• Open Humanities Press - Publishes peer-reviewed monographs and journals in the humanities.
• Perseus Digital Library - Also known as the "Perseus Hopper," covers the history, literature, and culture of the Greco-Roman world.

Sciences

• arXiv.org - Access to more than 1.8 million e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, and Statistics.
• Public Library of Science (PLOS) - Publishes seven peer-reviewed open-access journals in a variety of scientific disciplines.

Social Sciences

• Social Science Research Network - Contains an abstract database (915,000 working papers) and an electronic paper collection (800,000 full text pdfs).
• IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research - Contains more than 3,000,000 full-text items, part of a large volunteer effort to enhance the free dissemination of research in Economics, RePEc.
• Research in Agricultural and Applied Economics (AgEcon) - Contains working papers, conference papers and journal articles in applied economics, including the subtopics of agricultural, consumer, energy, environmental, and resource economics.