An open access (OA) publication is openly accessible for everyone as full text, online and free of charge. Options to publish open access:
Gold OAThe publication is freely accessible online. An article processing charge (APC) may be charged for the publishing. The APC charge may be covered by the author, authors' employer, or by a research funder. The amount of the charge varies from a few hundred to thousands of euros. There are also OA journals that do not charge any publication fees. This type of OA publishing is sometimes called Diamond OA. Read more about article processing charges and APC discounts.
To ensure long-term accessibility and promote findability, you should have your OA publications self-archived in an institutional OA repository.
Green OAA version of a publication is deposited into a subject-specific or institutional OA repository, where it is openly accessible, either immediately or after an embargo period, according to publisher policies. The publisher may also determine which version of the publication can be self-archived into a repository. Self-archiving is always free for the author. The Turku UAS OA repository is Theseus.
Copyright is not transferred to the repository and remains with the author and/or the original publisher.
Self-archiving is a part of Turku UAS processes. Authors, see instructions on self-archiving.
Hybrid journalsHybrid journals are subscription-based journals, usually published by major/legacy publishers, where you can publish individual open access articles by paying an article processing charge (APC). The FinELib licensing agreements for scholarly journals include discounts on APCs for Turku UAS authors, more information: article processing charges and APC discounts.
Articles published behind a paywall may be self-archived if it is allowed by the publisher's terms and conditions.
Most research funders do not recommend publishing in hybrid journals. APCs in hybrid journals may cause a so-called "double dipping" situation, where a research organisation, such as the Turku UAS, pays an expensive journal subscription fee annually, as well as APCs to publish individual articles open access. The FinELib consortium negotiates e-resource licensing agreements with open access benefits (APC discounts) included.
According to the Initiative for open access publishing Plan S, the hybrid model of publishing does not fulfil the conditions of open access publishing.
Open Access (OA) offers free and legal access to scholarly publications, but online you may wander into different pirate sites that have obtained the articles entirely without permission and against copyright law. Pirate sites may claim to be open access platforms, but they do not represent the views of scholarly publishers, researchers, or libraries on open access. If you are using these sites, you use them at your own risk, so make sure your personal details will not leak into the use of these sites.
Black OA (illegal shadow libraries)
Publications are illegally deposited or harvested in breach of copyright laws from the platforms of scholarly publishers into so-called shadow libraries, such as Sci-Hub or Library Genesis (LibGen). These pirate sites obtain publications illegally, so using them violates copyright and agreements between researchers, libraries, and scholarly publishers. In addition, articles posted on researcher social networking services, such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu, without (the publisher's) permission are considered Black OA.
Please be careful! The library does not recommend downloading materials illegally online. Please contact the library kirjasto@turkuamk.fi if you need an article that you do not have access to or cannot find online.
The pirate site Sci-Hub was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan in Kazakhstan in 2011 as a reaction to copyright limitations and expensive access fees to scholarly articles. Sci-Hub's content has been obtained illegally and it has been in legal battles with US scholarly publishers. In the court cases, the site has been proven illegal and has changed its domain several times.
More information:
Enago Academy, "Is Pirate Black Open Access Disrupting Green & Gold Open Access?" Enago Academy. July 10, 2023. https://www.enago.com/academy/pirate-black-open-access-disrupting-green-gold-open-access/.
Library of Alexandra, podcast: https://radiolab.org/podcast/library-alexandra
As the number of open access journals has grown, so unfortunately has the number of attempted scams also increased. These so called questionable/predatory publishers' and journals' only incentive is to make money and essentially rip off authors. Usually their peer evaluation process does not meet the academic requirements, and the author may be informed of a publishing fee only when the article has been accepted for publishing. There may also be a rush to pay the fee.
If you get an email from a publisher who is interested in for example publishing your conference presentation, be on the alert. You can tell most of these kinds of emails are scams or junk mail just by the style and language alone, but some can be very convincing.
The following checklist can be used to evaluate the reliability or quality of a publisher:
You can contact a member of the editorial board as well as authors who have published in the journal for their opinions on the journal. If the journal has an Impact Factor (IF) on their website, make sure that it is correct.
More information on predatory journals: Cabells Analytics: Cabells Predatory Report Criteria.
Watch a video on quality assessment of open access journals:
In terms of copyright, open access publishing is not different from other types of publishing: The author always retains the copyright to their work regardless of whether the publication is open access or self-archived in an open access repository. Do not waive your copyright even when signing a publishing agreement!
Open science recommends the use of Creative Commons (CC) licenses. With Creative Commons licenses, an author grants a wider than normal copyright permission to use their work in e.g. teaching and research. Using Creative Commons licenses does not mean you waive your own copyright, but they give others the permission to use the work with the conditions defined by you. Open science recommends to use the Creative Commons license CC BY (Attribution).
Pick a suitable license from the Choosing a Creative Commons license infographic, or use the CC license chooser. Follow the steps and answer the questions as they apply to you and the chooser will suggest which CC license you should use.
If you already know which license you are going to use, you can download the icon from the Downloads page of the Creative Commons organisation.
More information on Creative Commons licenses:
This guide has Turku UAS's instructions on open access. Among others, the following themes are covered:
Contact our experts on collecting data on publications by email julkaisutiedonkeruu@turkuamk.fi
Contact our experts on open access publishing by email openscience@turkuamk.fi.
We are happy to help!
Open policy finder - Search service that contains self-archiving policies for major publishers and journals and funders' open access policies (formerly SHERPA/RoMEO)
Help for finding publishers and OA repositories
Help for choosing a publication channel
This resource has been licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It does not apply to photos or videos unless otherwise stated.