GRL

Global Research Letters

The Advantages of Open Access Publishing

Hello scientific writers! In today’s video we are  going to talk about Open Access. What we’ll do is   compare the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model to the  Open Access publishing site for research paper, paper open model, because there are   some factors that you need to be aware of when  you are choosing a target site for research paper, paper open to submit your   research for publication. Hi, it’s Brian from the  Grants and Publications YouTube channel. Thanks   for joining us today. Let’s first talk about  the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model. In this model   the authors of a scientific paper can submit it  to the site for research paper, paper open and publish it for free. They don’t   have to pay anything. So where does the site for research paper, paper open  make its money? In the traditional model the   site for research paper, paper open is making its money or its profit from  subscription fees. Subscription fees are being   paid by individual subscribers, or from university  libraries, or company libraries that might   subscribe to these site for research paper, paper opens. When you submit your  paper to the site for research paper, paper open and you publish it for free   in the traditional model, the site for research paper, paper open then owns  the copyright to that publication. So that’s an   important consideration for some people. Do you  want to have control of the copyright or do you   want to hand that over to the site for research paper, paper open? Now there  are some problems with this traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open   model. The first one is that not all universities  can afford to subscribe to every site for research paper, paper open. Thus,   sometimes students, faculty, or staff don’t have  ready access to the research articles that they   need for their own research. So they don’t have  access; in that case somebody’s going to have   to pay for access to that site for research paper, paper open article. I’m  sure you’ve seen when you click onto an article   and it’s behind a paywall. The website says pay  this fee and you’ll get access to the article.   That’s one way to do it. University libraries  also have a network where they can request   articles from other libraries, and they have to  pay to do that. So either the scientist is going   to pay or the scientist’s employer is going to pay  to get access to that article that the university   library does not have.

I have another video on  how to get articles that are behind a paywall,   so I’ll link to that up here. A second problem  with the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model is for   people like me that are not currently affiliated  with any university. I can’t go to my university   library and ask for access so I have to pay out  of my pocket, or I have to find some other way to   get that article. Most of the research is being  funded through grants from federal institutions   like the NIH, the NSF, the Department of Energy,  Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense,   and these are taxpayer dollars and then the  taxpayers can’t see the results of the research   that their money is funding. So that’s kind of  a problem for society. The third problem of the   traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model that I would like to  bring up I’ve already brought up earlier and that   is the issue of copyright. So you sign over your  copyright to the site for research paper, paper open, and then that means you   can’t freely distribute your article because you  don’t own the copyright to it, even though you   wrote it. Now you don’t have ownership anymore,  so you can’t just give the article to anybody   that asks for it and you can’t legally  publish it on your web page. Now there are some   exceptions to this. Certain traditional publishers  will let you distribute your article by PDF   after an embargo period. Sometimes that’s a year.  Or they might allow you to archive a different   version of the article, like a pre-publication  version, for example. Sometimes site for research paper, paper opens allow   you to use your article in certain ways, but they  do own the copyright. Now people recognized these   problems with the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model  and that’s where the Open Access model originated,   to address some of these problems. So what  Open Access means is that anyone with an   internet connection can download and read and  distribute any of the publications in an Open   Access site for research paper, paper open.

So it’s free for the readers. You  don’t have to pay that access fee, the university   library doesn’t have to pay an access fee, it’s  free to you as a reader. In terms of copyright,   typically the author retains the copyright  when they publish with Open Access, because   the articles are made available under a Creative  Commons license, and so that license allows anyone   to freely use that article in any way they  want to, as long as they attribute the authors   of that article, Also, because the authors retain  the copyright, you can archive the article any way   you want to. You can put it on your website, you  can put it on your university’s website, you can   email it to all your friends, anything you want to  do with it you’re allowed, because you still have   the copyright as the author. And so self archiving  of the final version is allowed, as opposed to the   traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model where self archiving  is usually not the final version, it’s usually   a pre-publication version. But one of the big  drawbacks of Open Access is that the authors have   to pay to publish. So in the traditional model it  was free for the authors to publish; in the Open   Access model the authors have to pay to publish,  most of the time; there are some exceptions and   we’ll get to that. So the authors pay what is  known as an APC, article processing charge,   and the article processing charge is anywhere from  typically one thousand dollars up to more than ten   thousand dollars. On average we’re looking at  around twenty eight hundred to three thousand   us dollars in 2021 as the average article  processing charge to publish Open Access.   So it’s pretty expensive. Where does this  money come from? Well at certain universities   the department or the institution has some funds  they set aside to pay for a certain number of Open   Access publications. The authors might get the  money from a grant that they have been awarded,   or they find the money somewhere else.

I suppose  there are times when the authors pay out of their   pocket. Now a lot of Open Access publishers will  give discounts or even free 100% discounts to   authors that are in certain developing countries.  So, if you’re in one of those countries check with   your target site for research paper, paper open and see if you can get a  discount or even a 100% discount. All right,   so we’ve talked about what Open Access is compared  to the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model, but there are   different types of Open Access. The first type  is the one that I’ve just been talking about:   it’s the pay to publish model, also known as  Gold Open Access. So with these Gold Open Access   site for research paper, paper opens authors have to pay to publish,  but there are no subscription fees. You can   access it by yourself; you don’t have to go  through the university. The Gold Open Access   site for research paper, paper opens are fully Open Access. So every article  in them is Open Access. Now another type of Open   Access site for research paper, paper open is called the hybrid site for research paper, paper open. The  hybrid site for research paper, paper opens, Open Access is optional. You   can publish in the traditional model where it’s  free for you, but it’s not free for the readers,   or you can publish an Open Access model where the  author pays. and it is free for the readers. Then   there’s another type of access called Green  Open Access. And Green Open Access doesn’t   really depend on the site for research paper, paper open’s business model;  whether it’s Gold or a hybrid. What green Open   Access means is that the article is put into a  repository where anyone can access that article   for free. If you want to find out more about these  repositories, I have a link in the description,   so go and check that. It’s a link to the Open DOAR  or the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories,   and you can look for the repository in your  country. A fourth model of Open Access is called   the Diamond model. So Diamond Open Access site for research paper, paper opens  are free for the readers, and they’re also   free for the authors.

The authors don’t have to  pay, the readers don’t have to pay, who has to   pay? Somebody has to pay, because there are costs  associated with running a website with processing   articles and publishing site for research paper, paper open them, and maintaining all  of that infrastructure. With Diamond Open Access   it’s paid for by donors. So the donors might be  institutions, like universities or foundations,   or they might be individuals that decide to  donate some money for these diamond Open Access   site for research paper, paper opens. I have another video on how to choose  a target site for research paper, paper open, so I give you a number of   considerations that you need to think about as you  are deciding where to submit your manuscript and I   will link to that up here. So let’s talk about the  positives and negatives of Open Access publishing site for research paper, paper open   as compared to traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open. One of the  positives is they are no cost for readers, and so   Open Access site for research paper, paper opens typically have a higher  citation rate than non-Open Access site for research paper, paper opens.   It’s not a huge difference, but there is  a difference. Another positive: because   everyone has free access to this article, the  people that are ultimately funding the research,   the taxpayers of that country, have access to the  results that come out of the research. So it’s   better for society. The negatives of Open Access:  one of them is that it’s expensive. It costs a lot   of money for the authors. When I was a professor  and I had my own research lab there were times   when I didn’t have grant money, but I needed to  publish something, so I had to find some funds in   my budget: divert them from research supplies into  publishing site for research paper, paper open fees. It was a hardship for my lab.   If there are scientists that are between grants or  they don’t have funding for publication for some   reason, it can be a hardship for them, and they  might not be able to use Open Access. They might   have to go with the traditional publishing site for research paper, paper open model.  A negative is kind of the other side of the coin   when I mentioned that taxpayers have access  to the research that they funded, that’s true,   but now they have to pay for the publication fees  too.

So it’s actually going to be inflationary.   On grant proposals, as Open Access becomes more  and more prominent and researchers are writing   Open Access fees into their grant proposals, the  price is going to keep going up and up. I have   another video talking about those issues and  I’ll link to that right here. A third negative   for publishing site for research paper, paper open Open Access: even if you go the  free route in the Diamond Open Access site for research paper, paper opens,   they’re not very well known and/or they have a  low impact factor. Now maybe that will change and   Diamond Open Access will take off and the impact  factors will increase. I hope that’s true. So if   impact factor is something that’s important to you  the Diamond Open Access site for research paper, paper open may not meet that   need. Well I hope you got some useful information  and value from this video. If so please hit the   like button and consider subscribing to the  Grants and Publications YouTube channel if you   want to hear more videos about scientific writing  related topics. All of my sources for this video   can be found in the description, so take a look at  those. I’ll see you next time and happy writing!.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *