Open Access

What is Open Access (OA)?
Open Access means your scholarly work is freely available online for anyone to read, download, and share. It removes paywalls and subscription barriers so knowledge can reach a broader audience.

Why publish Open Access?
Publishing OA helps your research reach more people and have greater impact.

Benefits include:

• Visibility and reach: Your work can be discovered by readers everywhere, including those outside academia.

• Higher impact: OA articles are often cited and downloaded more often.

• Equity: Readers around the world can access your research regardless of cost.

• Compliance: Meets funder and institutional Open Access requirements.

• Collaboration: Makes it easier for others to find and build on your work.

• Public good: Shares EMU scholarship with the wider community.

Open Access increases the visibility, usefulness, and influence of your research while contributing to a more open and inclusive scholarly community.

There are several Open Access publishing models, each offering different levels of cost, access, and reuse. Understanding these models can help you choose the best option for your work.

• Gold OA: Articles are openly available immediately upon publication. Authors or funders often pay an Article Processing Charge (APC). Examples include PLOS, BioMed Central, and SAGE Open.
• Hybrid OA: Subscription journals allow authors to make individual articles Open Access by paying an APC, while the rest of the content remains behind a paywall.
• Green OA: Authors deposit a preprint or postprint version of their article in an institutional or disciplinary repository, such as DigitalCommons@EMU. Publisher policies may set embargo periods or sharing limits.
• Diamond or Platinum OA: Articles are free to read and free to publish in. No APCs are charged because costs are covered by institutions, societies, or non-profit organizations.
• Bronze OA: Articles are free to read on the publisher’s site for a limited time, but they are not licensed for reuse or long-term sharing.

There are several ways to make your work Open Access. The options below vary by publisher policy and funding model, but all help increase the visibility and reach of your research.

• Choose an OA Publication: Publish in a journal that makes all or some articles freely available online. This can include fully open or hybrid journals.
• DigitalCommons@EMU: Deposit a version of your work in the university’s open access repository.
• Preprint or accepted manuscript: Share a version of your article when publisher policy allows.