Open Access Publishing

TAU researchers publish OA for free

Tel Aviv University signed a read & publish agreement with the following publishers:

American Chemical Society - No Fee
Institute of Physics - No Fee
The Royal Society - No Fee
Cambridge University Press - No Fee
Sage - discounted rate of 200 GBP

For additional information, please contact the Acquisition & Electronic Resources Dept.
Email: sveta@tauex.tau.ac.il

What is Open Access (OA)?

Up until recently scientists and researchers published their scientific work in journals which allowed only paying subscribers to access their contents, in print or online.

New thoughts about the origin of the money invested in research and who gets the right to read it when published, led to the concept of Open Access and to the principle that the world’s knowledge is more powerful when it is shared.

Open Access means that research outputs are distributed online, free of charge, or other access barriers. The reader is not required to pay in order to read the journal’s content. He can read, download, copy, distribute and print as long as he acknowledges the authors and cites the paper properly.

Different models of publishing OA

The financial model of the academic publishing world had to change in order to allow Open Access publishing. If publishers do not charge fees from subscribers anymore, other sources of financing had to be found.

There are mainly two ways to publish open access:

Gold open access article

The article is published open access.
The version published is the final one.
Review process: High standard, rigorous peer review.
Time: Available immediately.
Platform: Publisher’s platform.
Payment: Article processing charge (APC), paid by or on behalf of the author.
Copyright: copyright retention by the author and a CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution License) license on the version of record.

Green open access article

(Conditions vary according to author agreement with the publisher)

The article is published open access.
The version published may or may not be the final one. Sometimes it’s the author’s accepted manuscript. (This may cause a problem of multiple versions online and difficulties in citation count).
Review process: varies and can range from very poor or non-blinded review process to rigorous peer review.
Time: varies from previous to, concurrent with, or delayed for some time after formal publication.
Platform: Not the publisher’s platform; general or institutional open access repository (self-archive).
Payment: No fee (no APC).
Copyright: Copyright ownership and CC license status vary.

Additional routes for publishing Open Access

Hybrid: Free under an open license in a toll-access journal.
Bronze: Free to read on the publisher page, often for a limited time, but without a clearly identifiable license, usually related to public relations decisions by the publisher.

Pros and cons of publishing in OA

Pros

Wide dissemination
More people can read products of academic research – including those who would not ordinarily have access to it because of cost or opportunity.
With wider dissemination come new ideas for new studies, immediate use in teaching, and exposure to the business world and new initiatives.

Speedy publication
Even with the peer-reviewed process, the publication is faster than the traditional route.

European Plan S
In September 2018, Science Europe – an association of European research and funding organizations – launched European Plan S, under which all researchers who receive public grants provided by national and European research council and funding bodies are required to publish their research in open access journals and platforms. Hybrid journals that are subscription-based are not allowed.

Fast exposure
There are studies that indicate that freely available papers obtain more citations, and are downloaded more often in the first year of publication. This means an increase in exposure and in citation potential when the research is at its most relevant.

Rewards to Open Access Publishing
More and more universities around the world reward their researchers for publishing in open access (recruitment, promotion, probation, rewards, etc.).

Cons

Expensive for researchers
It is usually the author, or the author’s employer or academic department, which pays the cost of publication.

Quality concerns
Although changing rapidly, the quality of OA publications is still an issue.
Some of the open access journals have very poor or non-blinded review processes, allowing inferior science to become easily published.

Predatory Journals
Predatory publishing is an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy and without providing editorial and publishing services that legitimate academic journals provide (Wikipedia)

Tools to help you choose an OA journal

These tools will help you avoid predatory journals:

JCR – Journal Citation Report

http://jcr.clarivate.com/JCRLandingPageAction.action

Gives you the Journal Impact Factor which is an objective mean for determining the relative importance of a journal within its subject category, The higher the number the greater the importance of the Journal.
The Open Access Journal Profile feature introduces descriptive data for hybrid journals in the journal profile pages. The tile displays a breakdown of the journal’s articles by Open Access (OA) type.

DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals

https://doaj.org/

Provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. You can view the journals by subject, type of open access license, peer review process, article processing charges (APCs), publisher and more.
All data is freely available.

Sherpa services

https://www.jisc.ac.uk/sherpa

Helping authors and institutions make informed and confident decisions in open access publication and compliance.

Sherpa Fact
https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/fact/
Sherpa Fact checks if compliance with funder open access policies can be achieved with a particular journal.

Sherpa Romeo
https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.

Sherpa Juliet
https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/
Sherpa Juliet enables researchers and librarians to see funders’ conditions for open access publication.

Sherpa REF (Research Excellence Framework)
https://ref.sherpa.ac.uk/
Sherpa REF service helps authors and institutions decide whether a journal allows them to comply with the OA REF policy.