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About Open Access

Scholarly publishing is undergoing a major change as Open Access becomes more established and the business model of academic publishers changes to accommodate altered revenue streams. The prevailing model of the 20th century and the present relies on libraries to pay journal subscription fees, and for researchers to serve uncompensated as editors and peer reviews, in addition to writing manuscripts for submission. Open Access allows for articles to be free and open to the reader regardless of affiliated institutional access. 

In the current period we, find the old subscription model and various forms of Open Access coexisting, but university and institute libraries find themselves squeezed by rising subscription fees and rising article processing fees for OA rights. Libraries have reacted to the rising expenditure on both journals and article processing fees by cutting subscriptions or, more recently, trying to negotiate read/publish agreements with publishers. 

Quick facts about Open Access (OA)

  • Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.
  • In most fields, scholarly journals do not pay authors, who can therefore consent to OA without losing revenue. In this respect scholars and scientists are very differently situated from most musicians and movie-makers, and controversies about OA to music and movies do not carry over to research literature.
  • OA is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major OA initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature insist on its importance. Just as authors of journal articles donate their labor, so do most journal editors and referees participating in peer review.
  • OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature. The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers. Business models for paying the bills depend on how OA is delivered.

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Resources - Learn More

What is Open Access (OA)?

CGIAR Open Access Policies

Should I publish Open Access?

Types of Open Access

Green OA – making a version of the manuscript freely available in a repository.

Gold OA – making the final version of manuscript freely available immediately upon publication by the publisher.

Diamond OA – a form of gold open access in which there is no author fee (APC).

Gratis OA – the paper is available to read free-of-charge, though its reuse is still restricted, for example by ‘All Rights Reserved’ copyright.

Libre OA – the paper is made available under an open licence, allowing it to be shared and reused, depending on which licence is used. 

IFPRI is a CGIAR Research Center