Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Open access


Open access () is a model for that provides free, immediate, and unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed research articles, permitting users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts for any lawful purpose, subject only to constraints.
Originating in the late 1990s with initiatives like the and formalized by the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative, OA emerged as a response to escalating subscription costs and restricted dissemination in traditional .
OA operates through primary routes such as gold OA, where publishers make articles immediately available upon payment of article processing charges (APCs) by authors or funders, and green OA, which allows of author manuscripts in institutional or subject repositories after an embargo period.
models in subscription journals offer OA options for individual articles via APCs, though these have drawn criticism for "double dipping" revenues from both subscriptions and fees.
Despite achievements in broadening access—particularly in fields like physics and —OA faces controversies, including the proliferation of predatory journals that charge APCs without adequate , undermining quality, and mixed empirical evidence on a purported citation advantage for OA articles.

Definitions and Terminology

Core Principles and Variants

Open access is defined as the free availability of peer-reviewed scholarly literature on the public , permitting users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full texts, as well as crawl them for indexing or pass them as data to software for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers beyond those inherent to . This formulation, originating from the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, emphasizes immediate availability and minimal constraints on reproduction, limited only to preserving author integrity and proper attribution. The core principle contrasts with traditional subscription models, where access is paywalled, by removing reader-side barriers at the point of publication, thereby broadening dissemination while relying on alternative mechanisms to sustain publishing. Variants of open access are distinguished by publication pathways, licensing, and compliance with open reuse permissions. Gold open access entails direct publication in fully open journals or platforms, where content is hosted by the publisher under an open license permitting , typically upon acceptance. Green open access involves authors depositing versions of their work—such as preprints, author manuscripts, or postprints—in repositories, often subject to publisher embargo periods before public access. open access occurs in subscription journals offering optional open access for specific articles, combining paywalled content with fee-based exceptions. open access provides no-cost reading on publisher sites without an accompanying open license for derivative uses or redistribution. Black open access describes unauthorized copies of restricted content, distributed via platforms bypassing legal access controls. These variants reflect a redistribution of access costs from consumers to producers or intermediaries, which can realign publisher incentives toward maximizing output volume—since acceptance generates —over stringent quality controls traditionally enforced by subscriber scrutiny. Such dynamics arise because open access removes demand-side validation, potentially amplifying publication pressures in fields with grant-dependent authors.

Gratis Versus Libre Access

Gratis open access removes only price barriers to scholarly literature, permitting users to read, download, and print digital copies without payment, while retaining traditional restrictions that limit uses beyond or provisions. This form prevails in self-archived open access deposits, where authors or institutions upload accepted manuscripts to repositories without altering underlying permissions, thereby prioritizing dissemination through barrier-free access over expansive reuse. From a first-principles , gratis access enhances immediate availability by circumventing subscription costs, enabling broader readership in resource-constrained settings, though it preserves authors' proprietary control over derivatives, adaptations, or commercial applications to safeguard incentives. Libre open access extends gratis provisions by also eliminating most permission barriers, granting users rights to redistribute, modify, and build upon the work under standardized licenses that waive select exclusivities. Drawing analogies from the —where "gratis" denotes no cost and "libre" denotes freedom to use, study, modify, and distribute—libre open access facilitates causal chains of innovation, such as or pedagogical adaptations, by treating as a amenable to cumulative advancement rather than a fenced asset. However, this waiver introduces tensions with property rights, as authors relinquish portions of control, potentially exposing works to uncompensated commercialization or unintended distortions, though suggests such openness correlates with accelerated downstream applications in fields reliant on iterative reuse. Empirically, the majority of open access content remains gratis, with libre variants constituting a minority due to the deliberate licensing required; for instance, green open access repositories and many gold journals default to gratis models, while directories like DOAJ show attribution licenses—hallmarks of libre—in approximately half of indexed journals, underscoring that full permission removal demands explicit policy choices beyond mere fee waiver. This distribution reflects practical realities: gratis suffices for primary dissemination goals, but libre's permission freedoms better align with causal mechanisms for compounding, albeit at the cost of heightened author vigilance over scopes to mitigate risks to originality and attribution integrity.

FAIR Principles and Related Standards

The principles, denoting Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable, constitute a framework for enhancing the stewardship of digital research objects, including data, software, and other outputs, through machine-actionable and structured identifiers. Formulated by Mark D. Wilkinson and colleagues, these guidelines were first formally published on March 15, 2016, in Scientific Data, emphasizing that data should be assigned globally unique and persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs), richly described with machine-readable using domain-relevant vocabularies, and licensed to clarify reuse conditions, thereby facilitating automated discovery and processing by computational systems. The principles emerged from discussions within the research community, including the subsequent GO Initiative launched in 2017 to promote their global adoption via an " of and Services." Although frequently invoked alongside open access initiatives, FAIR principles are distinct from open access, which primarily addresses barriers to content availability such as paywalls and restrictions, whereas FAIR targets the intrinsic qualities enabling effective reuse regardless of access modality. The "Accessible" component in FAIR permits well-defined conditions, including authentication or embargo periods, without mandating gratis or libre openness, thus allowing compatibility with restricted datasets where ethical or legal constraints apply. Synergies arise in libre open access contexts, where FAIR-compliant amplifies reusability by enabling across repositories and tools, potentially reducing duplication in empirical validation; for instance, standardized vocabularies under FAIR's Interoperable guidelines support with open access platforms like domain repositories. In practice, however, FAIR implementation faces substantive challenges that temper claims of systematically accelerating scientific progress through enhanced reusability, as empirical assessments reveal inconsistent adoption and causal gaps in linking principles to outcomes like faster discoveries. Barriers include insufficient incentives for creation, variability in interpreting principles across disciplines—leading to non-machine-actionable outputs—and resource demands on researchers, with studies indicating low compliance rates in real-world sets despite policy mandates. These limitations underscore that while promotes verifiable practices in theory, poor enforcement and measurement undermine its causal efficacy, necessitating investments beyond mere to realize empirical benefits.

Historical Development

Precursors and Early Advocacy (Pre-2000)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the emergence of the provided a foundational technological enabler for digital scholarly dissemination. proposed the Web in March 1989 at , with the first website operational by August 1991, standardizing hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and for low-cost, decentralized distribution of documents over the . This infrastructure shifted communication from physical reprints and mailed preprints—limited by cost and logistics—to electronic networks, where files could be shared via FTP or email among growing academic user bases, which expanded from under 1 million internet hosts in 1990 to over 10 million by 1995. A pivotal precursor was the launch of on August 14, 1991, by physicist at (initially as xxx.lanl.gov), serving as a centralized for preprints in high-energy physics. By 1992, it hosted hundreds of submissions monthly, offering free, immediate access to unpublished drafts before peer-reviewed publication, thereby demonstrating scalable toll-free distribution without undermining traditional journals. arXiv's model relied on voluntary author uploads and community moderation, influencing later repositories by prioritizing rapid sharing in fields where preprints already circulated informally. Intellectual advocacy crystallized with Stevan Harnad's "Subversive " posted on June 27, 1994, to the VPIEJ-L , calling on authors of "esoteric" (non-trade) scholarly works to both preprints and refereed postprints on anonymous FTP sites or public servers. Harnad argued that since research is publicly funded and authored for impact rather than profit, would achieve 100% toll-free globally without cost to authors or readers, complementing—not replacing—peer-reviewed journals, which would retain roles. He envisioned this as a low-risk strategy, leveraging existing tools to eliminate barriers while preserving quality via established . Early responses highlighted potential revenue threats to journals, with critics warning that free archives could erode subscriptions funding editorial and distribution functions, though Harnad countered that demand for would sustain journals at reduced costs.

Foundational Declarations and Milestones (2000-2010)

The escalating costs of scholarly journals, known as the , provided a primary empirical impetus for formalized open access advocacy in the early , with subscription prices rising at rates of 5-6% annually compared to general of around 2-3%. This outpacing of budgets strained academic institutions, prompting calls for alternatives to traditional subscription models amid stagnant funding. The Budapest Open Access Initiative, convened by the Open Society Institute on February 14, 2002, marked the first major international statement defining open access as free availability of peer-reviewed online, permitting unrestricted reading, downloading, copying, distribution, printing, searching, and linking, provided authors and publishers receive appropriate attribution. It proposed two strategies— in open repositories (green open access) and creating open access journals (gold open access)—aiming to accelerate global dissemination without financial barriers. Subsequent declarations built on this foundation. The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, issued June 20, 2003, following a meeting hosted by the , specified open access for biomedical research as immediate, irrevocable public release of peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance, allowing reuse beyond with attribution, to maximize scientific progress. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, signed October 22, 2003, by research funders and institutions including the , extended the scope to include not only journal articles but also primary data and materials, emphasizing online availability with permissions for reuse, modification, and redistribution under open licenses. These declarations coincided with practical infrastructure developments enabling green open access. PubMed Central, launched by the U.S. National Library of Medicine in February 2000, established a free full-text archive for biomedical and life sciences literature, initially hosting content from select journals like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In November 2002, MIT and Hewlett-Packard released DSpace, an open-source software platform for institutional repositories, facilitating self-archiving of digital research outputs at universities. Early successes, such as the arXiv preprint server (operational since 1991), demonstrated benefits in physics, where preprints accelerated citations by providing rapid access ahead of formal publication, influencing broader adoption despite concerns over unproven scalability for diverse disciplines.

Expansion and Policy Shifts (2011-2025)

In the early , open access policies proliferated among research funders, with mandates increasingly requiring deposit in repositories or publication in compliant outlets, building on earlier declarations but accelerating adoption rates. By 2018, this momentum culminated in , launched on September 4 by cOAlition S, an international consortium initially comprising 11 European national funders committed to achieving full and immediate open access for publicly funded research by 2021. principles mandated publication in open access journals or platforms, immediate availability under open licenses like CC BY, and deposition of author manuscripts in compliant repositories, while initially tolerating journals only through transformative agreements until an extended deadline of 2024. cOAlition S expanded rapidly, reaching over 25 members by 2021 across Europe, Africa, and beyond, influencing global funders to adopt similar immediate open access requirements and fostering tools like the Journal Checker Tool for compliance verification. Empirical assessments indicate Plan S boosted open access shares among funded papers, though increases were comparable to non-mandated benchmarks in some analyses, with critiques highlighting restrictions on publishing venue choices and unproven net cost reductions amid subscription-to-open access transitions. Transformative agreements emerged as a key mechanism, exemplified by Germany's Projekt DEAL, which signed with Wiley in January 2019—the first nationwide deal shifting hybrid subscription funds toward open access publishing—and later with Springer Nature in 2020, yielding 97% open access for over 105,000 German institutional outputs by 2024. In the United States, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued the Nelson Memo on August 25, 2022, directing federal agencies to implement zero-embargo public access to peer-reviewed publications and supporting data from funded research, effective no later than 2026, superseding prior policies like the 2013 directive and emphasizing equitable dissemination without paywalls. The COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 accelerated open access practices, as publishers waived fees for related content—achieving 77% free availability by mid-2021—and preprint servers like medRxiv saw surges in submissions for rapid, unpaywalled dissemination, underscoring open access utility for crisis response but revealing persistent barriers like peer review delays without yielding systemic shifts beyond temporary exemptions. From 2023 to 2025, advocacy for —no-fee models reliant on institutional subsidies—intensified, propelled by UNESCO's 2021 recommendation and S's 2022-2025 sustainability project, alongside global summits emphasizing equity for low-resource regions, yet empirical data exposed challenges including underfunding, journal closures, and uneven lacking APC-driven incentives. Critiques of (APC) inflation mounted, with fully open access journal prices rising 9.5% into 2024 and 89% of sampled journals hiking fees between periods, prompting debates over cost escalation outpacing value gains and calls for caps, though evidence suggests such interventions risk market distortions without addressing underlying publisher revenues. S announced in 2023 the phase-out of transformative arrangement support post-2024, signaling a pivot toward fully open models amid ongoing evaluations of policy efficacy.

Economic Models and Funding Mechanisms

Article Processing Charges and Cost Structures

In the gold open access model, (APCs) are fees paid primarily by authors, their institutions, or research funders upon manuscript acceptance to cover editorial, , production, and dissemination costs, thereby enabling immediate public access without subscription barriers. This author-pays structure contrasts with traditional subscription models by aligning publisher directly with publication volume rather than readership demand. APCs vary widely by journal and publisher, with medians for gold open access articles around $2,000 in 2023, though averages often exceed $2,500-$3,000 across disciplines by 2024. For instance, historically charged approximately $1,800-$2,600, while high-prestige journals from publishers like or can demand $5,000-$10,000 or more per article. Many journals offer full or partial waivers for corresponding authors from low- or middle-income countries, covering 50-100% of fees in eligible cases through programs like Research4Life, though waiver uptake remains below 20% globally due to application hurdles and incomplete coverage. Empirical data indicate APCs have risen faster than general since 2019, with median paid fees increasing by over 10% annually in some segments, driven by publisher hikes of 9.5% for fully open access journals in 2024 alone. This escalation burdens researchers without dedicated funding, particularly in low-resource settings, where APCs can consume 10-20% of annual grant budgets and deter submissions from low- and middle-income country authors, who represent under 15% of open access outputs despite comprising over 80% of global population. The mechanism introduces incentives misaligned with rigorous , as publishers derive per accepted article regardless of long-term or metrics, potentially encouraging higher rates to maximize income—evidenced by studies showing top-tier journals exhibiting reduced selectivity under APC-based open access compared to subscription models. Authors, in turn, face pressure to prioritize APC-affordable outlets over those with stringent review processes, exacerbating quantity-over-quality dynamics in research evaluation systems that reward publication counts.

Subscription-to-OA Transitions and Hybrid Systems

In traditional subscription models, libraries and institutions pay publishers for bundled access to journal content, with costs often escalating due to "big deal" packages that include low-use titles to justify price hikes. Transitions to open access frequently occur through transformative agreements, which repurpose subscription fees to cover article processing charges (APCs) for open access publishing while maintaining read access. For instance, 's 2021 agreement with the expanded access to over 1,000 s and initially reduced net payments by at least 5% in the first year, but such deals have proliferated without guaranteeing long-term cost reductions. Similarly, the consortium in renewed its publish-and-read agreement with in December 2023, enabling and full open access publishing but shifting costs toward publication fees without proportional subscription offsets. Hybrid journals, which retain subscription barriers for non-open access articles while offering an option for immediate open access, exemplify transitional models but enable "double-dipping" wherein publishers collect both revenue streams without adjusting subscription prices downward as open access uptake rises. Empirical of Wiley's hybrid journals shows that proportions of open access articles increased without corresponding subscription price reductions, confirming double-dipping practices. APCs averaged a median of $3,230 in 2023, often exceeding those for full open access journals, allowing publishers to maximize revenues amid rising publication volumes. A 2021 study of publisher for revealed steady hybrid open access growth from 2015 to 2019, doubling article numbers, yet without evidence of subscription revenue erosion proportional to open access shifts. These transitions, often compelled by funder mandates like —which initially prohibited in 2018 before allowing "transformative journals"—have distorted market dynamics without delivering systemic efficiency gains or net cost savings for institutions. Global spending on hybrid open access rose 226.8% from $236.2 million in 2019 to $771.7 million in 2023, contributing to total expenditures of $8.349 billion over the period, with no offsetting subscription declines observed in major publishers. A 2024 analysis describes institutions as "trapped" in these agreements, which sustain publisher s through opaque pricing rather than facilitating a full shift to sustainable open access, as hybrid models prioritize revenue retention over proportional access expansion. Such outcomes reflect publishers' incentives to extract dual payments, undermining claims of transitional equity.

No-Fee Models: Diamond and Subsidized OA

, often termed platinum or no-fee open access, refers to scholarly journals that charge neither authors article processing charges (APCs) nor readers subscription fees, with costs covered instead by institutional subsidies, government grants, or non-profit sponsorships. This model accounts for a substantial share of publishing, with estimates indicating around 29,000 diamond journals producing approximately 356,000 articles annually as of recent surveys, predominantly funded by universities (73%) or scholarly societies (24%). Prominent examples include the platform, which operates across and other regions under a diamond framework supported by public and institutional funding to promote regional scientific output without financial barriers to participation. While OA emphasizes equity by eliminating direct author fees, empirical analyses reveal it often concentrates in smaller, regionally focused journals with limited global indexing, comprising only 8.4% of active journals in databases. Subsidized open access extends similar principles through backing by universities, academic societies, or consortia that absorb operational expenses via endowments, membership dues, or reallocations from traditional budgets. These models prioritize governance over commercial incentives, as seen in society-led flips to no-fee where revenues from prior subscriptions or events fund transitions. However, points to potential quality trade-offs, with and subsidized journals exhibiting lower visibility and rates in some fields due to reduced competitive pressures and weaker selectivity incentives compared to fee-based or subscription systems. Studies of indexed outputs show these journals often maintain national scopes, correlating with fewer citations per article and underrepresentation in high-impact global databases. By 2025, challenges have intensified for both and subsidized models, including hidden institutional costs such as staff time, maintenance, and costs from diverted research funds, which strain budgets without scalable revenue streams. Reports document funding gaps, with many operations reliant on short-term grants that fail to cover rising editing, archiving, and dissemination expenses amid growing submission volumes. Unlike market-driven subscription models that tie costs to demonstrated value through reader demand, no-fee approaches risk inefficiency and collapse when subsidies wane, as evidenced by stalled growth in underfunded networks and calls for diversified support mechanisms. limits persist, particularly in high-output disciplines, where institutional backing proves inadequate for long-term viability without broader policy interventions.

Infrastructure and Technical Implementation

Repositories, Preprints, and Archiving Practices

Institutional repositories serve as key infrastructure for green open access, enabling authors to self-archive accepted manuscripts or preprints in or institution-hosted platforms. These repositories facilitate compliance with funder mandates by providing persistent storage and dissemination without direct publication costs. As of January 2025, OpenDOAR records 5,983 open access repositories worldwide, reflecting steady growth driven by institutional adoption. Subject-specific repositories complement institutional ones by focusing on disciplinary needs, with , launched in 1991, pioneering preprint archiving in , , and related fields. , established in 2013 by , extends this model to , allowing rapid sharing of unpublished research to accelerate and claims. During the in 2020, preprint servers like and hosted thousands of manuscripts, enabling swift dissemination but also amplifying unverified claims that contributed to public . Archiving practices emphasize long-term preservation to mitigate risks of , employing distributed systems such as LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), which uses replication across networks of libraries for resilient storage. Complementary services like maintain of electronic journals and content, releasing materials only upon trigger events such as publisher failure, ensuring accessibility for subscribed or open access works. Publisher-imposed embargoes in green open access typically range from 6 to 12 months post-publication before authors can deposit final versions in repositories, delaying public availability and thereby limiting the immediacy central to open access goals. These periods vary by discipline and publisher, with some extending to 24 months, causally hindering benefits while protecting subscription revenues. Empirical studies indicate preprints enhance visibility, with early deposition correlating to a 20.2% citation increase compared to non-preprint articles, attributed to broader dissemination prior to formal . However, the absence of elevates retraction risks; analyses of literature show hundreds of retractions from preprints and rushed publications, often due to errors, , or methodological flaws, underscoring trade-offs between speed and validation. This dynamic highlights causal tensions: while preprints boost short-term impact metrics, they can propagate absent rigorous scrutiny, as evidenced by persistent citations to retracted works.

Databases, Indexing, and Discoverability

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), launched in 2003, serves as a community-curated index of peer-reviewed open access journals, applying vetting criteria to exclude predatory publishers and ensure compliance with open access standards such as transparent peer review and licensing. By 2022, DOAJ indexed over 18,000 journals across more than 500 subjects, facilitating discovery while prioritizing quality over mere openness. Similarly, CORE, established in 2011, aggregates metadata and full texts from thousands of open access repositories worldwide, amassing over 211 million research outputs by 2023 to enhance aggregated search capabilities. Discoverability relies on metadata standards like the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), a 2001 protocol enabling repositories to expose structured (e.g., ) for harvesting by services such as DOAJ and , thereby supporting across distributed open access sources. However, challenges persist in indexing non-gold open access variants: "black" open access, involving unauthorized copies (e.g., via shadow libraries), lacks verifiable metadata and licensing, complicating ethical aggregation; "" open access, where articles are freely readable but retain restrictive licenses prohibiting , often evades comprehensive indexing due to ambiguous with open access definitions. Proprietary databases like exhibit biases toward high-impact, subscription-supported journals, underrepresenting open access content—particularly from lower-middle-income economies—due to selection criteria favoring established metrics over global inclusivity. Empirical analyses as of 2025 reveal systemic gaps, with and capturing disproportionately fewer outputs from low-income regions compared to open aggregators like OpenAlex, distorting bibliometric evaluations and visibility for non-Western scholarship. These indexing disparities undermine claims of universal access in open access, as reliance on incomplete coverage perpetuates inequities in and .

Licensing, Embargoes, and Preservation Challenges

Open access publications predominantly employ (CC) licenses to facilitate legal reuse, with CC-BY emerging as the most permissive and widely adopted variant, allowing unrestricted sharing, adaptation, and commercial use provided attribution is given. According to data from the (DOAJ), as of 2023, over 70% of indexed OA journals utilize CC-BY or compatible licenses, enabling "libre" open access that supports derivative works and machine readability essential for and secondary analysis. However, variants like CC-BY-NC impose non-commercial restrictions, limiting reuse in for-profit contexts and undermining full openness; for instance, a 2022 analysis found that 15-20% of gold OA articles under such licenses deterred commercial innovation despite nominal accessibility. Compliance with license terms remains uneven, as empirical studies on analogs indicate frequent violations through improper attribution or unpermitted modifications, with OA facing similar unmonitored risks due to decentralized hosting and lack of enforcement mechanisms. Embargoes in green open access, where authors self-archive post-peer review, serve primarily to safeguard publisher subscription revenues by delaying public availability, typically ranging from 6 to 24 months depending on discipline and publisher policy. , for example, enforces journal-specific periods averaging 12-18 months for many titles to balance revenue recovery against access demands. By 2025, funder mandates have accelerated trends toward zero embargoes, exemplified by the U.S. (NIH) Public Access Policy update effective July 1, 2025, which eliminated the prior 12-month grace period and requires immediate deposit of accepted manuscripts into upon publication. This shift, driven by public funding rationales, pressures publishers but introduces trade-offs, as shortened timelines may incentivize rushed archiving of unpolished versions, potentially amplifying errors or reducing efficacy without corresponding boosts in immediate readership. Long-term preservation of open access content faces inherent risks from platform dependencies, funding volatility, and technological obsolescence, as many repositories lack perpetual hosting incentives absent subscription models. Initiatives like CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and LOCKSS mitigate these by distributing across global nodes, triggering open release only upon publisher failure; CLOCKSS, for instance, has preserved over 1.5 billion digital files since 2007, automatically applying CC-BY licenses to triggered content. Yet, causal factors such as underfunded institutional repositories—evidenced by a 2025 review citing staffing shortages and strategic misalignment in 40% of surveyed IRs—exacerbate vulnerabilities, with digital decay rates estimated at 10-20% annually in unarchived OA preprints due to server migrations or defunct hosts. Without market-driven , these systems rely on consortial goodwill, leaving niche or low-impact OA works particularly susceptible to loss.

Claimed Benefits and Empirical Evidence

Accessibility, Readership, and Usage Metrics

Open access (OA) publications demonstrate elevated usage metrics relative to paywalled counterparts, primarily tracked through standardized protocols like COUNTER, which quantify downloads, views, and abstract accesses across platforms. Publisher analyses, such as those from Taylor & Francis, report that OA articles receive over five times the downloads of non-OA articles within their portfolio, reflecting broader immediate accessibility without subscription barriers. These figures, derived from COUNTER-compliant data, underscore OA's role in amplifying readership among unaffiliated researchers and the public, though geographic disparities persist, with higher per-article usage often concentrated in regions with robust internet infrastructure. Despite these gains, self-selection effects complicate attribution of increased usage solely to open availability, as authors tend to pursue OA routes for manuscripts anticipated to attract wider interest, potentially conflating inherent appeal with access policy. In low- and middle-income countries, where OA publication rates reach up to 50% in some sub-Saharan contexts—higher than global averages—claimed accessibility benefits are curtailed by infrastructural constraints, including limited penetration and affordability. For instance, average monthly mobile consumption in low-income nations stands at 0.2 gigabytes, versus over 7 gigabytes in high-income counterparts, restricting effective engagement even with . Such divides highlight that while OA removes financial gates, it does not independently resolve technological or economic barriers to digital participation. OA has enabled verifiable instances of extended readership beyond academia, fostering public and policy engagement through unhindered dissemination of reports and datasets. Examples include OA articles on climate adaptation and that directly informed governmental strategies, such as influencing policy documents on environmental resilience via freely accessible empirical analyses published in 2022–2023. Repositories like exhibit sustained growth in full-text requests, correlating with heightened non-specialist queries during global events like the , where OA preprints and articles saw spikes in lay readership. These patterns affirm OA's contribution to democratized knowledge flow, albeit within limits imposed by varying and device access worldwide.

Citation Impacts and Altmetrics Analysis

Empirical studies on citation impacts of (OA) publications present mixed results, with many identifying an apparent citation premium for OA articles but highlighting significant confounders such as self-selection bias, where higher-quality or more impactful research is disproportionately deposited in OA venues, and extended exposure time due to earlier availability. A 2021 of 134 studies found that 47.8% confirmed an OA citation advantage (OACA), 27.6% found none, and 23.9% detected it only in subsets, underscoring the lack of consensus and the influence of methodological choices like database selection (e.g., or ) and controls for variables including journal prestige and publication age. When controlling for article quality and discipline, the premium often diminishes or disappears, particularly outside fields like where OA adoption is higher and citation norms favor rapid dissemination; for instance, analyses matching on self-citation rates and topic relevance show subscription-access articles equaling or exceeding OA in rigorous samples from social sciences and . In journals, where authors opt for on a per- basis, the premium appears inflated by selection effects—authors of potentially higher-impact papers are more likely to pay processing charges—yet studies indicate this advantage is smaller or absent compared to pure , with sometimes outperforming but not consistently surpassing subscription counterparts after adjustments. and data reveal field-specific biases, with stronger OACA in (up to 18% higher in some aggregates) attributable to collaborative networks and cultures rather than inherent superiority, while and show negligible or negative effects when exposure biases are modeled. No causal evidence links status directly to enhanced scholarly quality; instead, first-mover advantages in visibility drive citations, as evidenced by in large-scale datasets that equalize observables like author . Altmetrics, which track social media mentions, policy citations, and online shares, generally show higher scores for OA articles due to broader public accessibility, but these metrics correlate weakly with traditional citation-based scholarly impact, often reflecting publicity rather than substantive influence. A 2023 analysis of pharmacology articles found OA increased altmetric attention scores, yet the correlation with citations remained modest (Spearman's rho ≈ 0.2-0.3 across datasets), suggesting altmetrics capture societal buzz orthogonal to academic rigor. In disciplines with high public interest, such as public health, OA boosts shares on platforms like Twitter, but studies controlling for topic virality indicate no reliable proxy for long-term scientific value, with mainstream media amplification introducing biases unrelated to evidential merit. Overall, while OA enhances visibility metrics, uncritical attribution of superior impact ignores these decoupled dynamics and potential for inflated non-scholarly signals.

Broader Societal and Economic Claims

Proponents of open access argue that it enhances societal progress by accelerating the diffusion of knowledge, thereby fostering innovation and enabling broader application of research findings beyond academia. This perspective posits that unrestricted access removes barriers to cumulative scientific advancement, particularly for publicly funded work that constitutes a public good. However, empirical analyses reveal limited causal evidence for substantial acceleration of innovation at a societal scale; for instance, studies exploiting natural experiments in open access mandates find only modest increases in the diffusion of research into patented technologies, with effects concentrated in specific contexts rather than broadly transformative. Similarly, while open access may marginally improve knowledge transfer in low- and middle-income countries through enhanced internet-mediated dissemination, the overall impact on local innovation ecosystems remains incremental, often constrained by non-access factors such as infrastructure and human capital deficits. Economically, advocates claim open access improves for taxpayers by eliminating subscription barriers to publicly funded , allowing direct societal benefits without redundant access costs. This view assumes a net reduction in the system's expenses, shifting from institutional subscriptions to author- or funder-paid article processing charges (). In practice, however, system-wide costs have remained stable or increased; the global open access journal market reached $2.1 billion in APC revenues by 2024, yet this supplements rather than supplants the larger subscription-based , leading to hybrid models where publishers retain both revenue streams—a phenomenon critics term "double-dipping." Moreover, these calculations often overlook administrative transaction costs, such as negotiating APC waivers for low-income or managing funder compliance, which impose additional burdens on institutions and dilute purported efficiencies. First-principles evaluation underscores that while public funding justifies wide dissemination, open access's cost-shifting mechanism fails to achieve genuine savings, as total expenditures—estimated at over $30 billion annually—persist amid rising APC averages exceeding $2,000 per article in many venues.

Criticisms and Unintended Consequences

Predatory Publishing and Quality Control Failures

encompasses exploitative open-access operations that prioritize revenue from article processing charges (APCs) over rigorous standards, often featuring superficial or nonexistent , fabricated metrics, and deceptive marketing tactics. Librarian coined the term "predatory open-access publishing" around 2009 and formalized criteria for identification in 2012, including emails soliciting submissions, unverifiable editorial boards, and rapid acceptance without substantive evaluation. These hallmarks distinguish predatory entities from legitimate OA publishers, though gray areas persist where low-quality but non-fraudulent journals blur lines. The scale of predatory journals has expanded with OA's growth, particularly in APC-dependent models, leading to surges in fraudulent APC demands and journal hijacking schemes from 2023 to 2025. AI-based screenings identified over 1,000 suspicious journals in 2025 alone, while database analyses estimate predatory titles comprise 32-41% of entries in platforms like OpenAlex. Empirical tracking via tools like Cabell's Predatory Reports reveals ongoing proliferation, with bootlegged content rebranded for profit as a recent tactic. This expansion exploits lax regulation in , where new entrants face minimal barriers to mimicking credible outlets. Quality control failures in predatory venues manifest as unchecked publication of flawed or fabricated , eroding scholarly trust and introducing "citation pollution" into legitimate literature. Studies document that predatory articles receive markedly fewer citations—60% garner none within five years—yet infiltrate databases, skewing metrics when cited inadvertently and complicating bibliometric assessments. Such outputs degrade overall integrity, as evidenced by health sciences data showing predatory inclusions at 2% of 2015-2017 articles but with disproportionate reputational harm. Predatory practices systematically undermine the scientific by bypassing gatekeeping, fostering toward broadly. Causally, the framework drives volume maximization, as publishers profit regardless of rejection rates, creating incentives for minimal scrutiny in unregulated segments of . This market dynamic reveals self-regulation pitfalls, where absent traditional subscription barriers, low entry costs enable fraud without proportional quality enforcement. Empirical harms extend to distortion, as predatory citations embed in guidelines, amplifying unreliable evidence in fields like .

Economic Sustainability and Cost Shifting

The transition to open access (OA) has primarily involved shifting publication costs from subscription fees paid by libraries and institutions to article processing charges (APCs) levied on authors, their funders, or sponsoring organizations. This model transfers the financial burden directly to those producing rather than those accessing it, with global APC revenues reaching $2.1 billion in 2024, up from $1.9 billion in 2023 and projected to climb to $3.2 billion by 2028. Cumulative APC expenditures to six major publishers alone totaled approximately $8.3 billion from to 2023, reflecting rapid escalation without evidence of systemic cost reductions compared to prior subscription models. Empirical analyses indicate no net savings for the research ecosystem under this cost-shifting framework, as total expenditures on have not declined; instead, APCs layer additional expenses atop lingering subscription commitments, particularly in journals that offer options selectively. models enable publishers to collect APCs for individual articles while maintaining subscription revenues for non- content, a practice known as double-dipping, where fees are not offset by proportional subscription discounts. For instance, top publishers like , , and Wiley continue to derive substantial revenues, with shares of articles comprising a significant portion of their output as of recent data. This persistence undermines claims of efficiency gains, as libraries report sustained or increased budgets without corresponding expansions. Diamond OA, which avoids APCs and reader fees through institutional subsidies, grants, or volunteer labor, faces acute sustainability challenges, often collapsing absent continuous external support. Efforts to scale diamond models have faltered due to hidden operational costs, including , archiving, and , which strain underfunded non-profit entities; one prominent pivot to diamond OA failed under financial pressures despite alignment with goals. Journal editors have warned that reliance on unpaid academic contributions and library goodwill renders such outlets vulnerable to long-term viability issues, with calls for broader funding mechanisms unmet by scalable solutions. Similarly, "flipper" or transformative journals—intended to convert from subscriptions to full OA—have underperformed, with over two-thirds of participants in major programs failing to achieve mandated OA thresholds by 2023, resulting in their exclusion from supportive agreements. In cases of publicly funded , this cost structure imposes a double burden on taxpayers, who finance both the underlying grants (often 60-70% of costs) and subsequent to disseminate results, without guaranteed reductions in publisher margins that exceed 30-40% in some entities. Analyses of transitions reveal that aggregate system costs remain comparable to or exceed subscription-era levels when accounting for administrative overheads in APC negotiations and compliance, highlighting the model's failure to deliver promised economic efficiencies. These dynamics question 's long-term fiscal stability, as escalating APC markets and subsidy dependencies divert resources from without resolving core pricing inertias inherited from legacy systems.

Incentive Distortions and Research Quality Dilution

The transition to author-pays open access models, particularly gold reliant on article processing charges (APCs), alters fundamental publisher incentives from maximizing readership and subscriptions—tied to perceived —to maximizing submission volumes and acceptance rates to generate revenue. In subscription-based systems, publishers compete on selectivity and impact to retain institutional subscribers, fostering rigorous gatekeeping; conversely, APC-funded incentivizes leniency to avoid deterring fee-paying authors, potentially introducing acceptance bias where financial gain overrides methodological scrutiny. This shift amplifies the pre-existing publish-or-perish pressures on researchers, encouraging submissions of marginally viable work to high-volume outlets with lower barriers, as evidenced by mega-s maintaining acceptance rates of 50-70% compared to traditional s' often sub-20% thresholds. Empirical indicators of quality dilution include expedited peer review processes in many APC-driven OA publishers, such as MDPI's median timelines under 30 days from submission to decision, which correlate with reduced depth of evaluation and higher error rates in published outputs. A 2023 analysis of fast-growing OA journals revealed patterns of impact factor stagnation or retraction following volume surges, with Clarivate delisting outlets exhibiting citation manipulation or diluted selectivity amid rapid expansion. For instance, eLife, a prominent OA journal, lost its Journal Impact Factor in 2024 after adopting a non-traditional model prioritizing volume over traditional metrics, underscoring how incentive misalignment erodes signaling of research rigor. These distortions manifest in behavioral responses among researchers, where APC models facilitate "salami slicing" of results into multiple low-rigor publications to meet career quotas, diluting overall evidential in fields like . Recent studies, including a review of publication trends, link surging volumes to compromised average quality, with non-elite journals showing elevated retraction rates and weaker compared to subscription counterparts. While advocates frame mandates as equity enhancers, this overlooks causal evidence that volume-driven incentives systematically undermine non-top-tier outputs, as lower-resource institutions disproportionately publish in diluted venues due to waivers that further incentivize lax standards. Such patterns persist despite safeguards, as financial pressures on publishers prioritize throughput over thoroughness.

Policy Frameworks and Mandates

Funder, Institutional, and Governmental Policies

Funder policies have increasingly mandated open access to publications arising from supported research, often requiring deposit in repositories or publication in compliant venues. The (NIH) Public Access Policy, implemented in 2008, initially required peer-reviewed manuscripts from NIH-funded research to be submitted to no later than 12 months after publication to ensure public availability. Updated effective July 1, 2025, the policy now demands immediate public access to author-accepted manuscripts upon publication, eliminating embargoes and applying to articles accepted on or after that date. Similarly, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's policy, effective for grants awarded after January 1, 2017 and expanded in 2025 to all funded research, requires immediate open access under a Attribution 4.0 license, including preprint deposition and data accessibility, while prohibiting use of foundation funds for article processing charges. The mandates open access for its funded research articles, providing block grants to institutions for compliant publishing costs and requiring CC BY licensing where feasible. cOAlition S's Plan S, launched in 2018 by a group of national funders including the , requires grantees to publish peer-reviewed research immediately in open access journals, platforms, or repositories under open licenses, rejecting models unless part of transformative agreements transitioning to full open access. These mandates prioritize rapid dissemination but presuppose that funders' conditions can override publishers' proprietary models without inducing inefficiencies, such as rushed or selective compliance favoring high-fee outlets. Institutional policies typically require faculty to deposit final accepted manuscripts in university repositories, granting non-exclusive licenses for open distribution. Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted such a in 2008, the first in the United States, automatically licensing scholarly articles to the institution for open access archiving unless authors . This approach aims to preserve author control while enabling green open access routes, though it relies on voluntary deposits and may conflict with publisher agreements restricting versions of record. Governmental policies exhibit variation, with a trend toward immediate access devoid of embargoes. The Research and Innovation (UKRI) policy, effective for peer-reviewed articles submitted on or after April 1, 2022, mandates immediate open access under CC BY (or equivalent) licenses, allowing either publication in fully open access venues or repository deposition of accepted manuscripts with zero embargo. , the 2022 OSTP memorandum directs federal agencies to revise public access plans by 2025-2026, ensuring free, immediate availability of peer-reviewed publications and supporting data from federally funded research, expanding beyond prior embargo allowances to promote equitable dissemination. Such frameworks, while advancing access goals, generate compliance bureaucracies—tracking versions, licenses, and deposits—that divert researcher time from core inquiry, and assume market responses will align without empirical validation of net benefits to scientific progress.

Compliance Rates and Enforcement Realities

Compliance with open access mandates varies widely, with empirical surveys revealing rates often below 70% for stringent policies like implementations by 2024, attributable to weak penalties and researcher prioritization of subscription-based prestige journals over deposit requirements. A systematized review of funder mandates found that compliance improves under threats of funding withholding, yet such measures are rarely invoked, resulting in average adherence around 66% across sampled policies where open access articles comprised two-thirds of outputs. Green open access, reliant on accepted manuscripts, exhibits particularly low uptake despite technical feasibility for 79% of recent articles to achieve within 12 months post-publication; global statistics indicate a 28% decline in open access articles since 2014, as authors underuse repositories due to effort costs, version-of-record preferences, and publisher embargoes averaging 6-12 months that delay effective compliance. Hybrid open access options exacerbate gaps by permitting payments for individual open access within subscription journals, creating loopholes that sustain dual revenue streams for publishers without mandating journal-wide transitions, prompting S to terminate financial support for such models after 2024. Enforcement mechanisms predominantly involve self-reported data and periodic audits rather than automatic sanctions, fostering evasion through nominal via extended embargoes or selective deposits; for example, NSF-funded from 2017-2021 displayed persistent gaps in public access repository submissions, with incomplete coverage at research-intensive institutions. While exceptions like Foundation achieve 89% through targeted monitoring, broader realities reflect researcher resistance driven by career risks—such as reduced citations or prestige from forgoing top subscription venues—coupled with administrative burdens that prioritize volume over verifiable open access adherence. Emerging 2025 trends, including NIH policy revisions mandating zero-embargo deposits, signal stricter audits but encounter similar causal barriers without evidence of overcoming systemic distortions favoring established paywalled systems.

Transformative Agreements and Market Interventions

Transformative agreements, also known as read-and-publish deals, represent contractual arrangements between research institutions, consortia, or libraries and commercial publishers that convert traditional subscription payments into models supporting publishing fees, or article processing charges (APCs), while maintaining read to content. These agreements aim to facilitate a transition to full open access by reallocating existing subscription expenditures to cover APCs for affiliated authors, ostensibly without net cost increases to institutions. However, empirical analyses indicate that such conversions often fail to curb overall expenditure growth, as publishers adjust pricing structures to preserve or expand revenue streams amid the shift. Notable examples include large-scale European consortia negotiations, such as Germany's Project DEAL agreements with publishers like and Wiley, which span multi-year periods including 2023-2025 and encompass thousands of journals, converting subscription bundles into APC-inclusive models. , these deals have been critiqued for entrenching the market dominance of a few large publishers—often termed the "" (Elsevier, , Wiley, , and )—who control over 50% of global scholarly journal output and capture the majority of APC revenues, estimated at €1.46 billion paid to these firms in 2020 alone for open access s. This consolidation contradicts open access ideals of decentralizing knowledge production away from commercial intermediaries, as transformative agreements content within proprietary platforms rather than fostering or truly non-commercial open access models. Institutional interventions have included rejections of unfavorable terms, exemplified by Libraries' termination of negotiations in June 2020, citing the publisher's bundled and failure to align with open access principles that prioritize unbundled access and transparent costs over comprehensive "big deals." Antitrust scrutiny has intensified, with a 2024 U.S. federal lawsuit alleging that major publishers collude on practices like exclusive submission rules and uncompensated , exacerbating market power in the context of transformative agreements that reinforce oligopolistic . By 2025, concerns over non-transparent in these agreements have escalated, with calls for to reflect actual costs decoupled from prestige, amid evidence that APCs continue to rise faster than , undermining claims of cost-neutral transitions.

Global Disparities and Equity Issues

High-Income Versus Low-Income Country Dynamics

High-income countries (HICs) benefit from substantial and institutional support for article processing charges (APCs), enabling widespread participation in and (OA) models, whereas low-income countries (LICs) face exclusion due to limited and higher relative costs. In 2024, median APCs for health professions education ranged from $1,500 to $3,000, but the relative burden for authors from lower-income countries equated to 1.94 to 10.26 times the cost compared to high-income peers, often consuming a disproportionate share of budgets without equivalent waivers or subsidies. This disparity persists despite some publishers offering discounts, as HIC-dominated funders like participants cover APCs averaging $2,000–$4,000 per article, while LIC researchers rely on personal or scarce institutional funds, effectively pricing many out of prestigious venues. Diamond OA, which avoids APCs through alternative funding like public subsidies, predominates in (45% of journals) and (25%), but remains marginal in much of the Global South outside these regions, underscoring geographic inequities in non-commercial models. Latin America's long-standing diamond systems, supported by national consortia since the 1990s, produce over 75% of regional output via public financing, yet and show lower adoption due to infrastructural deficits in hosting and indexing platforms. Empirical analyses reveal that while LICs exhibit high raw OA publication rates—often exceeding 50% in biomedical fields—their outputs are underrepresented in globally indexed OA journals, comprising less than 8% of total contributions despite comprising 60% of . OA mandates, emphasizing APC-based gold routes, amplify these divides by pressuring LIC institutions to comply without addressing root gaps in digital infrastructure, funding, or local journal viability, fostering dependency on HIC publishers. Studies indicate LIC researchers face barriers to visibility in paywalled or hybrid systems, with underrepresentation in high-impact OA persisting due to selection biases and resource constraints rather than access alone. This dynamic risks exacerbating knowledge asymmetries, as LIC scholarship—vital for context-specific challenges like tropical diseases—remains sidelined, contradicting claims of inherent equity in APC-driven OA transitions.

Gender and Institutional Inequalities

Empirical studies indicate that women are underrepresented in authorship of (APC)-funded open access publications compared to men, with men authoring a higher proportion of such s across most academic fields. This disparity arises partly from inequalities, as female researchers often receive lower amounts and face greater barriers to securing APC coverage, amplifying existing gaps in resources. For instance, in analyses of publication data, senior male authors from resource-rich environments dominate APC payments, while female-led teams show lower uptake, potentially due to selection effects where only well-funded projects opt for high-cost open access routes. Institutional inequalities further exacerbate these trends, as researchers from smaller or less affluent institutions encounter heightened barriers to open access participation. Without centralized deals or transformative agreements—often negotiated by large universities—affiliated scholars at minor institutions must personally shoulder APCs, which average thousands of dollars per , deterring submissions from under-resourced groups. Unaffiliated or independent researchers face even steeper disadvantages, lacking institutional subsidies and relying on fee waivers that are inconsistently granted, leading to underrepresentation in open access outputs and perpetuation of biases toward publishers. These patterns highlight how open access models, while promoting , inadvertently favor well-resourced actors through cost-shifting mechanisms, where claims of inherent overlook causal links to pre-existing asymmetries rather than structural openness itself. Peer-reviewed analyses confirm that such biases persist despite mandates, as APC-dependent pathways correlate with institutional size and funding capacity, not merely policy adherence.

Regional Variations and Case Studies

In , open access adoption has advanced significantly through initiatives like , with compliance rates for outputs funded by cOAlition S members reaching approximately 80% in 2024, driven by mandates requiring immediate open access publication or deposition. This high rate reflects robust institutional infrastructure and funding availability in high-GDP countries, where penetration exceeds 90% in many nations, facilitating use and dissemination. However, challenges persist in models, where publishers have shifted costs via article processing charges (APCs), potentially straining smaller institutions despite policy enforcement. In the United States, funder-driven green open access predominates, with agencies like the (NIH) mandating deposition in after a 12-month embargo, contributing to over 30% of global articles from top funders being openly accessible via . Adoption correlates with high research funding levels—U.S. GDP per capita around $85,000 in 2024—and widespread digital access, though embargoes limit immediacy compared to gold routes. Compliance remains strong due to enforceable policies, but green OA's reliance on author deposits exposes variations tied to institutional support rather than universal mandates. Latin America's model, exemplified by , has achieved widespread success, with 95% of regional open access journals operating without author or reader fees, supported by public financing that covers 75% of scientific output from universities. hosts over 1,300 journals as of 2024, promoting no-APC sustainability through government and institutional subsidies, bolstered by moderate GDP growth and improving internet infrastructure in countries like and . This approach contrasts with APC-dependent models elsewhere, enabling equitable access amid varying economic capacities. In , hybrid open access has seen rapid growth, particularly in , where state subsidies under the Excellence Action Plan provide up to 24 million RMB over five years to publishers, supporting domestic journals amid 28% of global output from the country in 2024. Gold accounts for 29% of Chinese publications, fueled by institutional and high research volume, though only 0.9% of registered open access journals are English-language domestic ones. India's 2024 policy efforts emphasize repository-based green to counter barriers, amid negotiations for national access deals, reflecting infrastructure gains but persistent funding gaps in a diverse GDP landscape. Africa lags in open access adoption due to infrastructural constraints, including limited —averaging below 50% penetration in many countries—and shortages that hinder maintenance and digital archiving. of policies faces barriers like unreliable and disparities, resulting in low rates despite initiatives; for instance, only fragmented uptake occurs in universities with external , underscoring how low GDP (often under $2,000) and poor connectivity impede scalable models compared to higher-income regions. These factors prioritize basic access over advanced open dissemination, with causal links evident in uneven policy execution across the continent.

References

  1. [1]
    Read the Declaration - Budapest Open Access Initiative
    The BOAI is a statement of principle, a statement of strategy, and a statement of commitment. The initiative was signed by the Budapest participants.
  2. [2]
    Open Access - SPARC
    Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles with the rights to use them fully in the digital environment.
  3. [3]
    History of the Open Access Movement
    May 12, 2025 · Open access had its beginnings in the 1990s. This timeline lists important historical milestones in the German-speaking world.
  4. [4]
    Green, Gold, and Diamond Open Access
    Green open access is self-archiving, gold is publishing in open access journals, and diamond is gold without publication charges.
  5. [5]
    Types of OA - Open Access - GSU Library Research Guides
    Aug 13, 2025 · Gold—the publisher makes articles fully accessible on the journal website under a Creative Commons or similar license. · Hybrid – a subscription ...
  6. [6]
    Open access journals: Green, gold, hybrid - Wolters Kluwer
    There are several types of OA journals, but the most common are gold OA, green OA, and hybrid OA journals. Here is a brief synopsis.
  7. [7]
    'Predatory' open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and ...
    Predatory publishers have caused a lot of negative publicity for OA journals using APCs, partly due to the spam email that they constantly send out to ...
  8. [8]
    Is the open access citation advantage real? A systematic review of ...
    Jun 23, 2021 · While there has been substantial research to address this question, findings have been contradictory and inconclusive.
  9. [9]
    Open-access publishing: citation advantage is unproven - Nature
    Feb 13, 2024 · There might be many compelling arguments for open-access publishing for the benefit of science and scholarship, but there is currently little firm evidence.Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  10. [10]
    https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read
  11. [11]
    What do the types of oa_status (green, gold, hybrid, and bronze ...
    Dec 1, 2021 · Green articles are in repositories, bronze are free on publisher sites, hybrid are free with open license, and gold are in all-OA journals.Missing: black | Show results with:black
  12. [12]
    The Meaning of the Different Types and Colours of Open Access
    Gold route (Gold Open Access): First publication as an article in Open Access ... (Green Open Access): Secondary publication of publications from access ...
  13. [13]
    Gratis and Libre Open Access - SPARC
    In short, gratis OA alone allows no uses beyond fair use, and libre OA allows one or more uses beyond fair use.
  14. [14]
    gratis/libre OA - Peter Suber, Open Access News
    Aug 2, 2008 · Libre OA includes or presupposes gratis OA. But neither green nor gold OA presupposes the other, although they are entirely compatible and much ...
  15. [15]
    Open Access (OA) Resources Research Guide
    Oct 1, 2024 · There are Two Tiers of Open Access Publishing, Gold and Green. GOLD Open Access - Authors can submit their works to a Peer Reviewed Open Access ...
  16. [16]
    [PDF] Minutes* Senate Research Committee Monday, February 10, 2014 2 ...
    o Most Open Access is gratis. You get to "libre" via Creative Commons licensing, usually. Ms. Kirchner included a Creative Commons license on her PowerPoint ...<|control11|><|separator|>
  17. [17]
    The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management ... - Nature
    Mar 15, 2016 · The FAIR Principles put specific emphasis on enhancing the ability of machines to automatically find and use the data, in addition to supporting its reuse by ...Missing: empirical evidence
  18. [18]
    FAIR Principles
    The ultimate goal of FAIR is to optimise the reuse of data. To achieve this, metadata and data should be well-described so that they can be replicated and/or ...How to GO FAIR - GO FAIR · F2: Data are described with · I2: (Meta)data use
  19. [19]
    What is the difference between "FAIR data" and "Open data" if there ...
    FAIR is not equal to Open: The 'A' in FAIR stands for 'Accessible under well defined conditions'. There may be legitimate reasons to shield data and services.
  20. [20]
    The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and ...
    Mar 15, 2016 · The FAIR Guiding Principles describe distinct considerations for contemporary data publishing environments with respect to supporting both ...
  21. [21]
    Implementing Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR ...
    Dec 19, 2024 · To further the field of FAIR data, this study aimed to systematically identify barriers regarding implementing the FAIR principles in the area ...Missing: evidence | Show results with:evidence
  22. [22]
    Applying the FAIR principles to data in a hospital: challenges and ...
    Apr 25, 2022 · One of the challenges is to implement a FAIR Research Data Management plan (RDM) comprising FAIRification of priority resources and a FAIR ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  23. [23]
    FAIR principles to improve the impact on health research ...
    The implementation of the FAIR principles remains challenging due to some obstacles in the way, be it the lack of awareness in the research community on how to ...Missing: empirical evidence
  24. [24]
    FAIR Principles: Interpretations and Implementation Considerations
    Jan 1, 2020 · The FAIR principles are intended as a guide to enable digital resources to become more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable for ...INTRODUCTION · FROM INTERPRETATION TO... · INTERPRETATIONS AND...Missing: empirical limitations
  25. [25]
    [PDF] The rapid evolution of scholarly communication Andrew Odlyzko ...
    (a) Usage of online scholarly material is growing rapidly, and in some cases already appears ... Internet growth: Myth and reality, use and abuse. iMP: I n ...
  26. [26]
    About arXiv - arXiv info
    arXiv was founded by Paul Ginsparg in 1991 and is now maintained and operated by Cornell Tech. Operations are maintained by the arXiv Leadership Team and ...arXiv Staff · arXiv Advisory Board · arXiv Governance Model · Category Taxonomy
  27. [27]
    What is arXiv? Its Founding and Future from Paul Ginsparg
    Aug 14, 2024 · In 1991, when Ginsparg launched a pre-arXiv prototype at Los Alamos National Laboratory, xxx.lanl.gov, it was intended to support about 100 ...Missing: date | Show results with:date
  28. [28]
    Celebrating arXiv's 30th anniversary
    ” – arXiv founder Paul Ginsparg, 2011. Since 1991, scholars have digitally shared their research quickly, before publication, with their ...
  29. [29]
    A Subversive Proposal - ePrints Soton - University of Southampton
    Mar 15, 2024 · Harnad, Stevan (1995) A Subversive Proposal. In, Okerson, A. and O ... 1994 Address: Washington DC. Venue - Dates: Scholarly Journals at ...
  30. [30]
    [PDF] A Subversive Proposal
    Harnad, S. (1994) Implementing Peer Review on the Net: Scientific Quality Control in Scholarly Electronic. Journals. Proceedings of International Conference on ...
  31. [31]
    [PDF] A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing - ePrints Soton
    Jan 23, 2007 · CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. I.Overture: The Subversive Proposal. II.The Discussion Begins. The first response to Harnad's proposal was swift, ...
  32. [32]
    News & Views: Library Spending and the Serials Crisis - Delta Think
    May 4, 2020 · The inflation measures average around 2% - 3% per year, compared to headline price increases exceeding 5% experienced by many libraries.
  33. [33]
    The term “serials crisis” has come to be common shorthand for the ...
    The average cost of a political science journal has increased 59% since 2000, from $226 to $360, followed by sociology (54%), business and economics (49%), and ...
  34. [34]
    [PDF] Budapest Open Access Initiative
    Feb 14, 2002 · To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, we recommend two complementary strategies. ... February 14, 2002. Budapest, Hungary.
  35. [35]
    Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing - Peter Suber
    Jun 20, 2003 · The purpose of this document is to stimulate discussion within the biomedical research community on how to proceed, as rapidly as possible, to the widely held ...
  36. [36]
    Berlin Declaration - Open Access
    The Berlin Declaration, a milestone in open access, promotes open access as a comprehensive source of knowledge, including research results and data.
  37. [37]
    PubMed Central® Celebrates 10 Years! - National Library of Medicine
    May 4, 2010 · PubMed Central (PMC) officially debuted in February 2000, with a mandate to serve as a free digital archive for life sciences and biomedical literature.Missing: date | Show results with:date
  38. [38]
    About - DSpace
    Find out about DSpace, the institutional repository software of choice for ... The first public version of DSpace was released in November 2002, as a joint effort ...
  39. [39]
    Lessons from arXiv's 30 years of information sharing - PMC - NIH
    Aug 4, 2021 · arXiv also played an early role in the open access movement, catalysing resources such as PubMedCentral, publishers such as PLoS, and later ...<|control11|><|separator|>
  40. [40]
    a journey towards full and immediate Open Access | Plan S
    Sep 4, 2023 · For most cOAlition S members, the policies and tools that support the implementation of Plan S came into effect in 2021. Although the full ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
  41. [41]
    Plan S Principles - cOAlition S
    *For funders agreeing after January 2020 to implement Plan S in their policies, the start date will be one year from that agreement. In addition: Authors or ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
  42. [42]
    Ambitious open-access Plan S delayed to let research ... - Nature
    May 30, 2019 · As before, Plan S agencies will cover the costs of publishing open-access papers in such journals until 2024 (now pushed back from 2023), and ...
  43. [43]
    Plan S Update: The Expanding Membership of cOAlition S
    Feb 26, 2021 · Since its inception, the membership of cOAlition S has expanded worldwide; as of February 2021, it includes 26 members from Africa, the Middle ...Missing: influence | Show results with:influence
  44. [44]
    A mixed review for Plan S's drive to make papers open access
    Oct 15, 2024 · The open-access percentage among Coalition S–backed papers did increase by more than the ones not subject to an open-access mandate in one ...
  45. [45]
    Wiley - DEAL Konsortium
    Nov 17, 2024 · The Wiley agreement, signed on 15 January 2019, is the first transformative agreement negotiated by Projekt DEAL.
  46. [46]
    [PDF] 08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf
    Aug 25, 2022 · The memo recommends federal agencies make federally funded research publications and data publicly accessible without embargo by 2025, and ...Missing: zero | Show results with:zero
  47. [47]
    No revolution: COVID-19 boosted open access, but preprints are ...
    Sep 8, 2021 · In early 2020, many publishers pledged to exempt COVID-19 papers from their paywalls, and as of last week, 77% of all such articles were free ...
  48. [48]
    Diamond Open Access | Plan S - cOAlition S
    The objective of the 3-year project (2022-2025) is to provide the research community with an aligned, high-quality, and sustainable scholarly communication ...Missing: advocacy issues
  49. [49]
    Diamond Dreams, Unequal Realities: The Promise and Pitfalls of No ...
    Oct 15, 2025 · Diamond Open Access promises equity, but sustainability challenges remain. Discover the hidden costs, global gaps, and paths toward lasting ...Missing: advocacy | Show results with:advocacy
  50. [50]
    News & Views: The Realities of Increasing Open Access Charges
    Jun 18, 2024 · Going into 2024, we noted significant price increases. Fully OA list prices across our sample rose by around 9.5% compared with those set a year ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  51. [51]
    Shaking up the scholarly publishing market – Why caps on APCs ...
    Sep 11, 2025 · In addition to confirming a growing adoption of APCs, we found that APC prices have been escalating—89% of journals increased their APCs from ...
  52. [52]
    cOAlition S confirms the end of its financial support for Open Access ...
    Jan 26, 2023 · Plan S was launched in 2018. At that time, cOAlition S recognised that transformative arrangements would provide a useful means to repurpose ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
  53. [53]
    Article Publication Charges (APCs) - Wiley Author Services
    Our open access journals charge an APC to cover the costs involved in the publication process, from administrating peer-review to copy editing and hosting the ...
  54. [54]
    Is the pay-to-publish model for open access pricing scientists out?
    Aug 1, 2024 · In 2023, the median APC for gold OA was $2000, and for hybrid, $3230, Haustein's study found. At the high end, the Nature portfolio of hybrid ...
  55. [55]
    Open Access Journal Publishing 2024-2028 - The Freedonia Group
    Revenue for gold and hybrid OA comes almost exclusively from Article Processing Charges (APCs) usually paid by funders of the research from which the articles ...
  56. [56]
    Open Access Publishing Metrics, Cost, and Impact in Health ...
    Oct 16, 2024 · The median (IQR) APC for all journals was $2820.00 ($928.00-$3300.00). Associations were observed between impact factor and APC (β coefficient, ...
  57. [57]
    Explore our publication fees and funding for open access publishing
    Learn about APCs by journal, institutional partnerships, and author fee assistance options including Research4Life and PFA.
  58. [58]
    https://www.universite-paris-saclay.fr/en/recherche/science-ouverte/publication-fees-apc
  59. [59]
    and Middle-Income Countries: Open Access and Health Equity - NIH
    Nov 14, 2023 · The financial burden imposed by APCs presents a significant barrier to researchers ... researchers in low- and middle-income countries. Ann ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  60. [60]
    Reducing open access publication costs for biomedical researchers ...
    Aug 30, 2021 · In the last two decades, APCs have risen well beyond inflation, posing a burden to scientists and funding agencies that often pay APCs on behalf ...
  61. [61]
    The APC-Effect: Stratification in Open Access Publishing
    Increasing evidence emerges that APCs impede researchers with fewer resources in publishing their research OA. ... limited funding for article processing charges ...
  62. [62]
    https://editorscafe.org/details.php?id=96
  63. [63]
    Open access publishing – noble intention, flawed reality
    The OA model uses Article Processing Charges (APC), paid to publishers at the time of publication by researchers, their institutions and/or funders. These APC ...
  64. [64]
    The effect of open access on research quality - ScienceDirect.com
    Top journals become more lenient under APC-based open access. Open access leads to less heterogeneity across journals in terms of quality.
  65. [65]
    Moving away from APCs: a multi-stakeholder working group ...
    Jun 27, 2023 · APCs have got us this far. They have usefully shown that OA is possible. But they create perverse incentives, administrative expenses, and ...
  66. [66]
    Full article: Open Access 'Unaccomplished' – Reforming Copyright ...
    Simultaneously, the 'author pays' principle of OA, in conjunction with the 'perverse incentives' that research evaluation systems create through their emphasis ...<|control11|><|separator|>
  67. [67]
    The costs of double dipping - Research Libraries UK
    Feb 6, 2015 · Double dipping arises if a publisher seeks an unwarrantable increase in revenues by levying article processing charges (APCs) for publication in a hybrid ...
  68. [68]
    Huge open-access journal deal inked by University of California and ...
    ... Nature Communications , an OA journal operated by Springer Nature, charges $5380. Advertisement. Springer Nature and UC will conduct an OA pilot for Nature ...
  69. [69]
    DEAL consortium and Springer Nature renew open access agreement
    Dec 5, 2023 · The publish-and-read agreement enables researchers at DEAL institutions to publish in the publishing group's hybrid and open access journals.Missing: costs | Show results with:costs
  70. [70]
    Does double dipping occur? The case of Wiley's hybrid journals
    The results revealed that the increased proportions of open access articles did not result in lower subscription prices; thus, there is no denying that double ...
  71. [71]
    Toward transparency of hybrid open access through publisher ...
    Jul 12, 2021 · Our results show that Elsevier's hybrid OA uptake has grown steadily but slowly from 2015 to 2019, doubling the number of hybrid OA articles ...
  72. [72]
    [PDF] Estimating global article processing charges paid to six publishers ...
    Jul 22, 2024 · Gold OA spend increased by 162.1% from $674.1 million in 2019 to 1.767 billion in 2023 and hybrid by 226.8% from $236.2 to $771.7 million ( ...
  73. [73]
    Trapped in Transformative Agreements? A Multifaceted Analysis of ...
    Sep 30, 2024 · Our analysis demonstrates that research institutions seem to be 'trapped' in transformative agreements. Instead of being a bridge towards a ...Missing: savings | Show results with:savings
  74. [74]
    Why hybrid journals do not lead to full and immediate Open Access
    Apr 29, 2021 · Hybrid OA publication fees are charged in addition to subscription fees, which results in publishers being paid twice for the same content.Hybrid has not facilitated a... · Hybrid journals are more...Missing: evidence | Show results with:evidence
  75. [75]
    [PDF] Diamond OA 2024: The World of No-Fee Open - Walt Crawford
    Jun 18, 2024 · 1997), Diamond OA 2024: The World of No-Fee Open Access Journals, ... Unusually low percentage of growing journals. Country of Publication ...
  76. [76]
    Who knew? Diamond open access publishing is not rare at all, but ...
    Feb 15, 2022 · The report found there are some 29,000 diamond open access journals, publishing 356,000 articles per year. Just as important as that scale is ...Missing: percentage | Show results with:percentage
  77. [77]
    Program, Publication Model, and SciELO Network
    SciELO is a program supporting open access research, implemented through a decentralized network, and the SciELO Publishing Model. The network is a global ...
  78. [78]
    From Fees to Free: Comparing APC-Based and Diamond Open ...
    Despite their benefits in providing cost-free dissemination, Diamond OA journals account for only 8.4% of the 3012 active engineering journals indexed in Scopus ...
  79. [79]
    Diamond OA 2024: The World of No-Fee Open Access Journals
    Jun 20, 2024 · Diamond OA is almost entirely (97%) either published or funded by universities and societies and is mostly in small and medium-sized journals.
  80. [80]
    Scholarly Societies Advancing OA Publishing: New examples and ...
    Aug 9, 2024 · The scholarly organizations starting OA journals and flipping titles to OA today are advancing a longstanding practice through the powers of the internet.Missing: backed | Show results with:backed
  81. [81]
    Examining the geographic and linguistic coverage of gold and ...
    Aug 15, 2025 · The results show the lower coverage of diamond journals in WoS and Scopus and confirms the national scope of diamond journals compared to gold.
  82. [82]
    Diamond Open Access - Special Issue - MDPI
    ... journals such as IEEE Access. However, Diamond OA journals exhibit a higher proportion of cited articles (88.8% compared to 83.4% in APC-based journals) ...
  83. [83]
    New report on the sustainability of Diamond OA in Europe
    Apr 3, 2024 · Institutional Diamond OA publishers have a clear view of their challenges: a lack of financial resources and stability and permanence in ...
  84. [84]
    [PDF] Challenges Confronting No-Fee Open Access Journals
    A variety of factors help to explain the growth of no-fee or so-called “diamond” open access. (OA) journal publishing. For many who are involved in this ...
  85. [85]
    Introducing the Diamond OA Sustainability Check - DIAMAS project
    This self-assessment tool can help you plan strategically for a more sustainable future and equip you to discuss financial sustainability.
  86. [86]
    Welcome to the Registry of Open Access Repositories - Registry of ...
    The aim of ROAR is to promote the development of open access by ... growth and status of repositories throughout the World. Open ...About · Browse by Country · Browse Items · Browse by Year
  87. [87]
    Current challenges and future directions for institutional repositories
    Aug 14, 2025 · According to OpenDOAR, as of January 2025, there are 5983 Open Access Repositories worldwide.
  88. [88]
    Preprints: What Role Do These Have in Communicating Scientific ...
    The first preprint server, arXiv (https://arxiv.org), was started in 1991 at Los Alamos National Laboratory by Paul Ginsparg for the purpose of immediate access ...
  89. [89]
    Tracking the popularity and outcomes of all bioRxiv preprints - PMC
    The preprint server that would catch on, bioRxiv, was not founded until 2013 (Callaway, 2013). Now, biology publishers are actively trawling preprint servers ...
  90. [90]
    The Danger of Misinformation in the COVID-19 Crisis - PMC - NIH
    Misinformation is a powerfully destructive force in this era of global communication, when one false idea can spread instantly to many vulnerable ears.
  91. [91]
    LOCKSS Program
    The LOCKSS Program at Stanford Libraries provides open-source technologies and services for high-confidence, resilient, secure digital preservation.About · Join LOCKSS · How LOCKSS Works · Use LOCKSSMissing: Portico | Show results with:Portico
  92. [92]
    Portico: Home
    Portico is a community-supported preservation archive that safeguards access to e-journals, e-books, and digital collections.Missing: LOCKSS practices
  93. [93]
    Open Access at University of Reading: Embargoes
    Oct 2, 2025 · Embargo periods vary but are typically 6-12 months after publication. Some are longer. You can check the publication embargo period for a ...
  94. [94]
    Green OA - Open Access - Library Guides at Penn State University
    Sep 25, 2025 · This guide provides an overview of open access, including green open access, gold open access, funder open access policies, and open access at Penn State.Missing: growth | Show results with:growth
  95. [95]
    (PDF) An analysis of the effects of sharing research data, code, and ...
    Aug 4, 2025 · We find that the early release of a publication as a preprint correlates with a significant positive citation advantage of about 20.2% (±.7) on ...<|separator|>
  96. [96]
    Analyzing retractions during the Covid-19 pandemic - ScienceDirect
    Rapid publishing during health crises poses significant challenges, including risks associated with preprints, delayed corrective actions, and continued ...
  97. [97]
    Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers
    We've been tracking retractions of papers about COVID-19 as part of our database. Here's a running list, which will be updated as needed.
  98. [98]
    [PDF] The Citation of Retracted COVID-19 Papers is Common ... - medRxiv
    Jun 30, 2022 · The study found that the citation of retracted COVID-19 papers is common, with 86% of citations not being critical. Most citing papers were ...
  99. [99]
    Twenty years supporting open, global and trusted research
    May 12, 2023 · DOAJ was launched in the wake of the Budapest Open Access Initiative of 2002, with a simple purpose to bring together a list of the growing ...
  100. [100]
    DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
    DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community.Definition of Open Access · DOAJ Blog · DOAJ team · Guide to applying
  101. [101]
    [PDF] A Review of the Directory of Open Access Journals
    Aug 23, 2022 · There are over 18,000 journals indexed in DOAJ across more than 500 subjects using the. Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system.<|separator|>
  102. [102]
    CORE is 10 years old! Discover how we grew up
    Since our start 10 years ago, we collected 211M scientific outputs along with 33M hosted documents bringing open science to everyone.
  103. [103]
    CORE: A Global Aggregation Service for Open Access Papers
    Jun 7, 2023 · This paper introduces CORE, a widely used scholarly service, which provides access to the world's largest collection of open access research publications.Missing: history | Show results with:history
  104. [104]
    Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
    OAI-PMH is a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability, using six verbs or services invoked within HTTP for metadata harvesting.
  105. [105]
    Open Access Colors: An Opinionated Guide - GW OSPO
    Aug 15, 2024 · Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
  106. [106]
    To Open Access or Not to Open Access? - Gijs van Dijck, 2025
    May 20, 2025 · Bronze Open Access concerns publications that are free to read and without a clear (open) license. The European Journal of International Law, ...
  107. [107]
    [PDF] Geographical and Disciplinary Coverage of Open Access Journals
    Lower middle-income economies are particularly underrepresented in Scopus and WoS, highlighting systemic biases within these databases. OpenAlex presents a ...
  108. [108]
    Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals - NIH
    Apr 14, 2025 · Lower middle-income economies are particularly underrepresented in Scopus and WoS, highlighting systemic biases within these databases. OpenAlex ...
  109. [109]
    OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS | PLOS One - Research journals
    As a result, the WoS and Scopus are less inclusive in representing the full scope of scholarly output, particularly from non-Western countries or lower-income ...
  110. [110]
    Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic ...
    For instance, a large-scale comparison performed at the journal level has shown that WoS and Scopus are both biased toward Natural Sciences, Engineering, and ...
  111. [111]
    Open Science - Creative Commons
    Creative Commons empowers open science by ensuring public research is open access, using CC licenses, and leveraging their expertise in open licensing.
  112. [112]
    The fundamentals of open access and open research | Open science
    Open access (OA) refers to the free, immediate, online availability of research outputs such as journal articles or books, combined with the rights to use these ...What Is Open Data? · What Is A Preprint? · Featured Blog Posts From...
  113. [113]
    [PDF] A Systematic Literature Review on OSS License Management - arXiv
    Jul 10, 2025 · License Non-Compliance: License non-compliance in OSS involves failing to meet the specific conditions set by OSS licenses, such as proper ...
  114. [114]
    [PDF] Journal Specific Embargo Periods 2025 - Elsevier
    The following journal-specific embargo periods are set to ensure the sustainability of individual journals, and reflect their individual dynamics. Please note: ...
  115. [115]
    New NIH Public Access Policy Lifts Embargo Period on Manuscripts
    Jan 15, 2025 · The new NIH policy mandates the submission of author-accepted manuscripts to NIH's PubMed Central without a 12-month embargo period.Missing: trends | Show results with:trends
  116. [116]
    NIH Public Access Policy Changes - Effective July 1, 2025 | Columbia
    Jul 1, 2025 · This policy eliminates the previous 12-month embargo period and requires immediate public access to NIH-funded research. Key Changes:Missing: trends | Show results with:trends
  117. [117]
    Preservation issues - Digital Preservation Handbook
    There has always been a strong link between preservation and access. Repositories need to ensure that their digital materials are safe and secure, but most also ...
  118. [118]
    Home - Digital Preservation Services - CLOCKSS
    Permanent Open Access. CLOCKSS assigns Creative Commons Open Access licenses to all triggered publications to ensure they are open and available to everyone.FAQ · What's in CLOCKSS? · Participating Publishers · How CLOCKSS Works
  119. [119]
    Open Access - COUNTER Metrics
    Open Access Usage Metrics​​ COUNTER is valuable in assessing OA usage! There is a real need to understand how the transition to OA is working, what makes it work ...Missing: readership | Show results with:readership
  120. [120]
    Benefits of open access publishing - Author Services - Taylor & Francis
    Articles published Open Select with Taylor & Francis typically receive 35% more citations* and over 5 times as many downloads** compared to those that are not ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  121. [121]
    Measuring Usage in an Open Access World | Katina Magazine
    Mar 20, 2025 · Looking at average weekly usage by region over these periods highlights the geographic differences in usage. Across all regions, usage increased ...
  122. [122]
    Effects of open access publishing on article metrics in ... - Nature
    Jan 11, 2024 · Overall, Bronze articles received significantly more citations than Green and Hybrid articles. However, this effect was mainly driven by the ...
  123. [123]
    Low income countries have the highest percentages of open access ...
    Jul 29, 2019 · The finding that open access publication rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and low income countries suggests that factors other than open ...
  124. [124]
    Improving data infrastructure helps ensure equitable access for poor ...
    May 6, 2021 · In low-income countries, average data consumption stands at just 0.2 gigabytes per month compared to just over 7 gigabytes per month in high- ...Missing: open limitations
  125. [125]
    Digital Divide in Developing Countries: Why We Need to Close the ...
    Jan 23, 2023 · The digital divide impacts much of life in developing countries by both limiting access to modern technology as well as keeping these countries from advancing ...
  126. [126]
    Five open access research papers impacting policy right now - Insights
    A rundown of five Taylor & Francis open access research articles published in the past two years, that directly influenced recent policy documents.
  127. [127]
    Does it pay to pay? A comparison of the benefits of open-access ...
    Feb 27, 2024 · In contrast to traditional subscription-based (or closed access) publishing, OA allows any reader to access articles online without paying a ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  128. [128]
    Is the open access citation advantage real? A systematic review of ...
    Jun 23, 2021 · 64 studies (47.8%) confirmed the existence of OACA, while 37 (27.6%) found that it did not exist, 32 (23.9%) found OACA only in subsets of their sample, and 1 ...
  129. [129]
    Do open access journal articles experience a citation advantage ...
    Oct 17, 2020 · We found that OA journal articles experience a citation advantage in very few subject areas and, in most of these subject areas, the citation ...
  130. [130]
    Citation differences across research funding and access modalities
    Our findings show that open access articles published in hybrid journals receive considerably more citations than those published in gold open access journals.Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  131. [131]
    Open access improves the dissemination of science: insights from ...
    Oct 15, 2024 · Our findings reveal that Wikipedia relies on open access articles at a higher overall rate (44.1%) compared to their availability in the Web of Science (23.6%) ...
  132. [132]
    The Effect of Open Access on Scholarly and Societal Metrics of ...
    Jan 4, 2023 · This study examined the effect of open access (OA) status on scholarly and societal metrics of impact (citation counts and altmetric scores, respectively)
  133. [133]
    The correlation between altmetric score and traditional measures of ...
    The results of this study indicate that there is a weakly positive relationship between AAS and some bibliometric measures for articles published in the ...Missing: scholarly | Show results with:scholarly
  134. [134]
    A critical review on altmetrics: can we measure the social impact ...
    Jul 2, 2021 · Altmetrics measure the digital attention received by a research output. They allow us to gauge the immediate social impact of an article by taking real-time ...
  135. [135]
    Correlation between Altmetric Attention Scores and citation scores ...
    Altmetric Attention Scores had a moderate positive correlation with journal impact factor, and might influence the impact of publications and their citation ...
  136. [136]
    The impact of open access mandates on scientific research and ...
    Oct 20, 2023 · We found that approximately 10% of researchers do not comply with the mandate. Thus, policymakers should prioritize clear communication of the ...
  137. [137]
    The Impact of Open Access Mandates on Invention - MIT Press Direct
    Nov 30, 2021 · The most credible estimates find that open access causes only a small increase in academic citations.
  138. [138]
    Research and open access from low- and middle-income countries
    Access to the Internet has improved communication and made a significant impact to the transfer of knowledge in LMICs. It has provided a conduit to research ...Missing: diffusion | Show results with:diffusion
  139. [139]
    The impact of knowledge diffusion on economic growth across ...
    Improved capability to access innovation and knowledge has a positive and significant effect on economic growth.
  140. [140]
    Six Factors Influencing Subscription Costs - ACS Axial
    Feb 6, 2024 · In this article, we will identify some of the factors influencing our cost, including the ways in which inflation plays a role across many facets of publishing.
  141. [141]
    [PDF] Economic Landscape of Federal Public Access Policy
    Aug 6, 2022 · Taxpayers directly support research and development funding agencies, which in turn, provide financial awards to researchers, who produce ...
  142. [142]
    Beall's List – of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers
    A list of potential predatory publishers created by a librarian Jeffrey Beall. We will only update links and add notes to this list.Standalone Journals · How to recognize predatory... · Hijacked Journals · Contact
  143. [143]
    Estimating the predictability of questionable open-access journals
    Aug 27, 2025 · In the DOAJ list of journals, “unwhitelisted” journals might differ from “blacklisted” or “predatory.” This difference is because some ...
  144. [144]
    The Gray Zone Between Legitimate and Predatory Open Access ...
    Some OA publishers have discovered it to be more lucrative to operate within this gray zone, incorporating legitimate and predatory characteristics.Missing: percentage | Show results with:percentage
  145. [145]
    Hundreds of suspicious journals flagged by AI screening tool - Nature
    Aug 29, 2025 · Researchers have identified more than 1,000 potentially problematic open-access journals ... Predatory journals entrap unsuspecting scientists.
  146. [146]
    Prevalence of predatory journals in OpenAlex
    Jun 3, 2025 · We can thus estimate that OpenAlex is likely to include between 32 and 41 % of predatory journals as identified by CPR. In line with its stated ...
  147. [147]
    Predatory publishing practices: what researchers should know ...
    Oct 10, 2023 · According to one study, 60% of articles published in predatory journals receive no citations over the five-year period following publication, ...
  148. [148]
    How Predatory Journal Citations Affect Legitimate Medical ... - Cabells
    Nov 1, 2023 · Citing predatory journals is ethically complex due to insufficient peer review, causing citation contamination. It's generally better to avoid  ...
  149. [149]
    Predatory Journals: What the Researchers and Authors Should Know
    Their findings revealed that within health sciences, approximately 2.0% of all articles published between 2015 and 2017 appeared in suspected predatory journals ...
  150. [150]
    Journals Operating Predatory Practices Are Systematically Eroding ...
    Jun 19, 2025 · Such predatory practices result in the systematic degradation of research quality and its “truthfulness”. Moreover, they undermine the science ...
  151. [151]
    The Rise of Predatory Publishing: How To Avoid Being Scammed
    Aug 9, 2025 · The explosive increase in predatory OA journals is not only a risk to inexperienced authors, but also threatens to undermine the OA model and ...
  152. [152]
    Assessing the impact of predatory journals on policy and guidance ...
    Apr 4, 2022 · Predatory, or illegitimate journals, often do not perform the expected quality checks that legitimate journals conduct. For instance, predatory ...
  153. [153]
    Open Access Journal Publishing Market Report 2024-2028 ...
    Sep 30, 2024 · Open Access sales reached $1.9 billion in 2023 and $2.1 billion in 2024, (up from $1.8 billion in 2022) and are expected to grow to $3.2 billion by 2028.
  154. [154]
    Green Open Access - Free for Authors But at a Cost for Readers
    Nov 12, 2024 · The Green open access approach not only preserves the subscription system but also imposes hidden costs on readers, prolonging the inequities that open access ...Missing: unsustainability | Show results with:unsustainability
  155. [155]
    Beware 'naive' switch to 'utopian' diamond journals, warns editor
    May 2, 2025 · Diamond open-access journals are too reliant on unpaid academic labour and the goodwill of university libraries to remain financially sustainable.
  156. [156]
    'Transformative' journals get booted for switching to open access too ...
    Jun 20, 2023 · This policy—known as “Plan S”—initially banned grantees from publishing in “hybrid” journals that earn money from both subscriptions and ...
  157. [157]
    NIH to cap fees journal publishers charge researchers - POLITICO Pro
    Jul 8, 2025 · High publishing costs are a double hit to taxpayers who already fund underlying NIH research, the statement said.
  158. [158]
    Policy paper #17 on access to publicly funded research
    Apr 11, 2024 · In many cases, European taxpayers are essentially asked to pay up twice, once for funding the research and again for access to the final ...Missing: double | Show results with:double
  159. [159]
    Open access is ruined by perverse incentives - Physics of Risk
    Open access is ruined ... The funny thing was that reviewing took unreasonably long time (more than eight months), yet still was of a rather poor quality ( ...
  160. [160]
    Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth? - PMC
    May 26, 2015 · Acceptance rates are in the range of 50–70%, and speed of publication is around 3–5 months. Common features in mega-journals are alternative ...Introduction · Results · Article Volumes
  161. [161]
    Why are the peer-reviewing processes at the MDPI publisher so fast ...
    Jul 10, 2021 · The publisher apparently demands that editors decide within a timeframe. The editors aggressively pursue reviewers who can make those tight deadlines.
  162. [162]
    “Truly devastating”: Four journals won't get new Impact Factors this ...
    Jun 28, 2023 · The journals will remain indexed in Web of Science, but won't have an Impact Factor for this year in Clarivate's 2023 Journal Citation Reports.
  163. [163]
    Open-access journal elife will lose its 'impact factor' over ... - Science
    Nov 14, 2024 · But the journal, which has a relatively high impact factor, 6.4, will lose it when Clarivate releases updated ones for all journals in June ...
  164. [164]
    How The Perverse Incentives of Academic Publishing Are Hurting ...
    Jul 10, 2024 · How The Perverse Incentives ... Many of the journals that do offer free-to-read, “open access” papers do so by charging researchers an exorbitant ...
  165. [165]
    Trends in scientific publishing: does quantity compromises quality in ...
    Oct 1, 2024 · In this context, some may claim that expanding publication volumes may lower the quality of papers and thus affect journals' reputation [3].
  166. [166]
    Preserving credibility of open access journals - Science
    Oct 20, 2022 · They also acknowledge the perverse incentives of a business model based on volume of articles published, which has led to the proliferation of ...
  167. [167]
    NIH Public Access Policy Overview | Grants & Funding
    Jun 23, 2025 · To achieve these goals, the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy requires Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication in a journal, on or ...
  168. [168]
    Gates Foundation Open Access Policy
    We have adopted an Open Access policy that enables the unrestricted access and reuse of research funded, in whole or in part, by the foundation, including ...Missing: Wellcome Trust
  169. [169]
    Open access funding | Wellcome
    Wellcome-funded researchers can access funds to cover open access publishing costs for research articles, book chapters and scholarly monographs.Missing: Gates | Show results with:Gates
  170. [170]
    'Plan S' and 'cOAlition S' – Accelerating the transition to full and ...
    The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific ...About · About cOAlition S and Plan S · Plan S Principles · Journals and platformsMissing: influence | Show results with:influence
  171. [171]
    [PDF] Making full and immediate Open Access a reality - cOAlition S
    Plan S aims for full and immediate Open Access to publications from publicly funded research. The coalition of research funders that have committed to ...
  172. [172]
    Open Access Policies | Harvard OSC
    The basic idea of OA is simple: Make research literature available online without price barriers and without most permission barriers.
  173. [173]
    UKRI open access policy
    Aug 6, 2021 · The policy applies to: peer-reviewed research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022; monographs, book chapters and edited ...
  174. [174]
    [PDF] Do Open Access Mandates Work? A Systematized Review of the ...
    The study found that the funders with the best compliance rates threatened to withhold funding if researchers did not comply, although it was unclear ...
  175. [175]
    What are Open Access Mandates? - MDPI Blog
    Sep 10, 2024 · It found that around 66% of the articles were OA. They concluded that: Our research demonstrates that funders can clearly shape compliance ...Missing: rates surveys
  176. [176]
    The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access
    This review aims to be a resource for current knowledge on the impacts of Open Access by synthesizing important research in three major areas.
  177. [177]
    Uptake of Open Access (OA) - STM Association
    Between 2014 and 2024, the percentage share of global articles, reviews and conference papers made available via gold has increased by 26%, from 14% to 40%.
  178. [178]
    Open Access Gaps in the National Science Foundation Public ...
    Feb 3, 2025 · This study searched for NSF-PAR records published between 2017 and 2021 from two research intensive institutions.Missing: indexing income outputs representativeness<|control11|><|separator|>
  179. [179]
    A decade of open access policy at the Gates Foundation based on ...
    Jan 28, 2025 · APC prices have risen faster than the rate of inflation, with name brand journals commanding over US$12,000 per article. As Nigerian ...<|separator|>
  180. [180]
    Guidance on the Revised NIH Public Access Policy, Effective July ...
    Authors should deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central. An embargo of up to twelve months after the date of publication is allowed.Missing: trends | Show results with:trends
  181. [181]
    Transformative Agreements: Are They the Solution to the Open ...
    Jun 10, 2025 · Transformative agreements are contracts between research institutions (or consortia) and publishers that aim to shift payment models.
  182. [182]
    Navigating the Complexities of Read and Publish Agreements
    Sep 24, 2024 · Transformative agreements repurpose a portion of subscription expenditures to support open access (OA) publishing by the institutions' authors.Missing: analysis | Show results with:analysis
  183. [183]
    (PDF) The Oligopoly's Shift to Open Access. How the Big Five ...
    This study aims to estimate the total amount of article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open access (OA) in journals controlled by the five large ...Missing: consolidation | Show results with:consolidation
  184. [184]
    How transformative are transformative agreements? Evidence from ...
    Feb 24, 2024 · The DEAL agreements are, by far, the most extensive transformative agreements in Germany, simply because they are closed not only with two of ...
  185. [185]
    Transformative agreements are not the key to open access - COAR
    Aug 9, 2022 · Transformative agreements alone will only result in a slow and partial transition to open access, with content remaining siloed in various publisher platforms.Missing: escalation | Show results with:escalation
  186. [186]
    MIT, guided by open access principles, ends Elsevier negotiations
    Jun 11, 2020 · MIT has ended negotiations with Elsevier for a new journals contract. Elsevier was not able to present a proposal that aligned with the principles of the MIT ...Missing: transformative | Show results with:transformative
  187. [187]
    Antitrust action against academic publishers - Open Access Network
    Sep 25, 2024 · An antitrust lawsuit in New York against the major scientific publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Wiley and Wolters Kluwer.
  188. [188]
    Guest Post - Article Processing Charges are a Heavy Burden for ...
    Mar 9, 2023 · These middle-income countries typically have much smaller research budgets than high-income economies, yet are expected to pay full APCs, which ...Missing: empirical | Show results with:empirical
  189. [189]
    Diamond open access - Small Encyclopedia of Open Science
    The majority of diamond open access journals are in Latin America and Europe: “about 45% are published in Europe and 25% in Latin America”. 47 In relative ...Missing: concentration | Show results with:concentration
  190. [190]
    Diamond open access in Latin America: the challenge of a ...
    Apr 27, 2024 · Diamond open access is the most prevalent model, and only 10% of the journals charge APCs2. This is corroborated by a recent survey carried out ...
  191. [191]
    The current state of global contribution to open access publishing in ...
    The top three countries made up 56.7% of the total open-access (OA) contributions. · Low and lower-middle-income countries are less than 8% of the total OA ...
  192. [192]
    Under-representation of low and middle income countries (LMIC) in ...
    Jul 4, 2023 · Low income countries have the highest percentages of open access publication: A systematic computational analysis of the biomedical literature.
  193. [193]
    Who's writing open access (OA) articles? Characteristics of OA ...
    In 10 of the 11 fields, men author more APC OA articles than women, and this result is significant in seven fields (Tables 3–5). The strongest effect is in ...
  194. [194]
    Equity concerns persist over open-access publishing | News - Nature
    Mar 9, 2021 · Senior male researchers at prestigious institutions are the most likely to pay to publish open access, study suggests.
  195. [195]
    The APC-barrier and its effect on stratification in open access ...
    Mar 1, 2023 · Increasing evidence has emerged that APCs impede researchers with fewer resources in publishing their research as OA.2. Methods · 3. Results · 4. Discussion<|separator|>
  196. [196]
    How open access is changing academic publishing
    Apr 15, 2024 · Open access models of publishing attempt to correct this bias and loss of author intellectual property by making research openly available to everyone to read/ ...
  197. [197]
    Plan S annual review: what's new? - The Publication Plan
    Jul 17, 2024 · OA rates for research funded by cOAlition S members remained high (~80%), particularly compared with the global average (60%). Gold OA was most ...
  198. [198]
    [PDF] Plan S, Annual Review 2023 - cOAlition S
    This multifaceted study, launched in October 2023, employs both quantitative econometrics and qualitative methodologies to provide a thorough assessment of ...
  199. [199]
    Open Access Uptake Based on Funded Research - STM Association
    The top 25 global funders financed research that contributed to 30% of global articles, reviews and conference papers in 2023.Missing: driven adoption
  200. [200]
    Open Access Uptake by Countries/Regions - STM Association
    In 2024, articles, reviews and conference papers authored in China have increased to 28% of total global output followed by the USA, 11%, India, 6% and the UK ...Missing: adoption | Show results with:adoption
  201. [201]
    Guest Post - Evaluating China's Science and Technology Journal ...
    Dec 18, 2024 · Besides funding individual journals, the EAP supports 13 state-owned publishers with the maximum support reaching 24 million RMB over five years ...Missing: subsidized | Show results with:subsidized
  202. [202]
    China's research clout leads to growth in homegrown science ...
    Jun 5, 2024 · There are only around 178 English-language open-access journals published in China, just 0.9% of the total registered in the Directory of Open ...Missing: subsidized | Show results with:subsidized
  203. [203]
    It's Not too Late for Open Access in India - Katina Magazine
    Nov 12, 2024 · The complexities of transitioning to open access through interoperable repositories, which would require a cultural shift, became apparent.
  204. [204]
    Challenges and Opportunities of Implementing Open Access Policies
    Findings: The implementation of open access policies in African universities faces significant challenges due to limited infrastructure, funding constraints, ...
  205. [205]
    Challenges and Opportunities of Implementing Open Access Policies
    Aug 6, 2025 · Challenges arise from insufficient funding, a lack of dependable internet access, inadequate digital infrastructure, disparities in technology ...