Open Access

Open Access (OA) means that scientific articles can be made freely available online. OA allows everyone to read, download, copy, distribute, print and use texts and figures in a way that doesn’t violate copyright law.

The aim of the Open Access movement is that all published research should be freely available at no cost for the reader. Open Access is included in the Open Science umbrella concept, aiming at opening up several parts of the research process. Apart from Open Access, Open Science includes open learning resources, pre-registration of research plans, open-source codes, open peer-review and open data.

The main idea is that this helps increase the quality of research and ensures that research results will be universally available. The library can be supportive throughout the research and publication process. The availability helps articles that are published Open Access to be disseminated quickly and increase the number of citations. Authors retain copyright instead of signing it over to the publisher.

A common model of Open Access publishing is moving the cost from the reader to the author, where authors pay a publishing charge (APC - author/article processing charge). Some of the library's agreements with publishers covers both journal subscriptions and Open Access publishing.

Read more about the library’s publishing agreements

Different types of Open Access

Pure (Gold) Open Access

Pure, or Gold, Open Access journals exclusively publish freely available articles that can be read by anyone, everywhere.

We recommend publishing in serious, pure Open Access journals. This is an essential step in the transition to 100% Open Access to research. Through a number of agreements with publishers, the Library can offer LiU authors discounts on publishing charges (APCs).

Hybrid Open Access

Hybrid journals are subscription journals where you can pay to make an individual article freely available.

The Library has agreements with a number of publishers that cover the costs for LiU authors when publishing Open Access in hybrid journals (linked below). These so-called transformative agreements begin a long-term transformation from hybrid journals to pure Open Access journals. There are also non-transformative hybrid journals.

We recommend LiU authors to publish in pure Open Access journals or journals that are covered by our transformative agreements.

Green Open Access

Green Open Access, or parallel publishing, is a model where articles are published Open Access with a delay.

Commonly, it is the author's last draft that can be made available this way. This can be done on the author’s own website, the publisher’s platform or open repositories such as DiVA and arXiv. About 90% of all published articles can be parallel published.

Why publish Open Access?

Increased visibility

Articles published Open Access are not hidden behind a paywall which makes them more visible than articles published in traditional subscription journals. The increased accessibility means that OA articles are likely to be more read and cited than those published behind a paywall.

Requirements from research funders

When research is financed through public funding, it is important that everyone can access the results and that the research is not locked behind expensive paywalls. Research funding organizations often have Open Access publishing as a requirement for allocating research funding. In this way, free access to information and knowledge leads to a more just and equal world and accessibility to information resources on a global scale.

Retained copyright for authors

With most subscription-based journals, the copyright is signed over to the publisher/journal. When publishing Open Access, you usually retain a larger part of your copyright. By using licences from Creative Commons, the author decides what others are allowed to do with his/her article. We are happy to support you in choosing what CC license to use. Please contact us at biblioteket@liu.se.

Open Access and Bibsam Consortium - The National Library’s blog on Open Access

Creative Commons - About The Licenses

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Library publishing agreements

Linköping University Library has signed agreements with publishers that gives Linköping University authors discount on the APC when publishing Open Access (OA) articles in journals. Find out more about available discounts.

Questionable publishers and journals

The increased Open Access publication of articles has resulted in fraudulent publishers offering researchers quick and cheap publishing solely to earn money. They are usually called predatory publishers / journals.

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Publish strategically

A researcher has a lot to gain from a strategic approach when choosing a journal to publish in. Depending on what you want to achieve with your publication, there are different aspects to consider.

Covers of journals hosted by LiU Electronic Press.

Linköping University Electronic Press

Linköping University Electronic Press (LiU E-Press) is the university’s own publisher. LiU E-Press is committed to disseminating LiU research results by making publications by researchers and students at LiU openly accessible.

Open Access Week

The International Open Access Week is held annually as a celebration of Open Access and Open Science. During the week, the Library hosts webinars and other events related to the topic.

Open Access

Publishing