Roads to Open Access

• The “Green road” to Open Access refers to the practice of archiving a version of a publication in a closed-access journal by depositing it in an openly accessible institutional or disciplinary repository. Publishers usually allow to share author manuscripts that are compiled prior to or after the peer-review process (so-called preprints or postprints) after an embargo period, yet not the final version of record. WU offers the institutional repository WU Research for this purpose. The SHERPA/RoMEO database provides an overview of publishers' self-archiving policies.

• The “Gold road” refers to publishing an article in a freely accessible journal not subject to subscription fees, making the final published version available to anyone interested in reading it. To cover their expenses, some journals charge publication fees, also known as article processing charges (APC). A list of peer-reviewed Open Access journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

• Hybrid journals are conventional subscription journals in which individual articles can be "ransomed" to be publically accessible. This requires the payment of an APC to the publisher. The major disadvantage of hybrid publishing is that articles have to be paid for twice, both for the subscription to the journal as well the APCs (“double dipping”). Many funding organizations refuse to fund hybrid publishing for this reason.

Please note: In addition to the options described above, WU has special agreements with some publishers, allowing for reduced Open Access publishing rates for WU researchers. Please see Agreements with publishers for more information.