What is the aim of Open Access?
The aim of Open Access is to ensure a free online access to the results and publications of public funded scientific research.
A free online access means that the text can be read, downloaded, and shared with as few legal, technical, and financial restrictions as possible. Several methods, called “roads “, exist to publish in Open Access: the main ones are the platinum, golden, green and hybrid roads.
Types of Open Access
- Platinum road: Articles or books are immediately published in Open Access by the publisher or the author, without publication fees (Article or Book processing charges (APC/BPC)).
- Golden road: Articles are published immediately in Open Access on the website or the platform of the publisher, after payment of an APC or BPC by the author. Edition costs are no longer paid by the reader but by the researcher-author.
- Green road: Articles are published a second time, in an institutional or disciplinary archive, with the agreement of the publisher and often after an embargo period. It is the handwritten version of the article that is published, either before it is reviewed by an editorial or peer review committee (preprint), or after the manuscript has been accepted for publication (postprint).
- Hybrid road: Hybrid journals remain fee-based but provide free online access to individual articles if authors have paid APCs. This model is not reimbursed by the SNSF, as academic institutions often have to pay both a subscription and APCs.
Why Green Open Access?
- Providing wider access to publicly funded scientific publications
- Integrating Switzerland into the international Open Access movement
- Achieving the main objective of the national strategy: 100% Open Access publication for publicly funded research by 2024
- Reconcile as far as possible commercial interests (sale of publications) and public interests (free access to research results, common knowledge, progress) by means of an embargo period, at the end of which articles or e-books can be published in an institutional archive or on another freely accessible platform.