What Does Open Access Mean?

From October 21 to 27, 2024, this year's Open Access Week will take place. We would like to use this opportunity to promote the idea of "open access publishing" and inform you about the options available to you. Therefore, we will provide a daily "information bite" on the topic here.

Today, we will start with general information about open access. User-specific information can be found either on our library website or on the information platform open-access.network.

Open access refers to unrestricted and free access to scientific information without paywalls for readers. There are various ways to publish scientific results in open access. Essentially, there are four main paths: Gold, Diamond/Platinum, Green, and Hybrid.

The golden path refers to the initial publication of scientific results in pure open access journals. Journals following the golden path are funded through so-called Article Processing Charges (APCs). This means that authors pay a fee to have their article published in these open access journals.

Diamond or Platinum open access journals, for example, those run by academic societies, are entirely open access and do not charge authors an APC. Both reading and publishing are free of charge in these journals.

Hybrid open access journals are a special case. Some publishers offer the option of making individual articles freely accessible within a subscription journal for a publication fee (open access option).

The green path refers to the additional publication (secondary publication) of a document that was initially published in a subscription-based journal on institutional or disciplinary open access repositories. This secondary publication often appears after the original publication in the journal. The publisher specifies the allowed version that may be released. Depending on the secondary publication agreement, preprints or postprints (accepted manuscript versions or the version of record) may be published.

The open access team is happy to advise you on funding and support for oa publications, such as through transformative agreements with various publishers, or on selecting an appropriate publication place. Subscribe to our open access newsletter to stay updated on our extensive range of services. On our website, we also offer online coffee lectures in video format. Feel free to check them out!

Online Coffee Lecture: The Paths of Open Access (Video, 7:50 min)