Open Access

You have several options for making your journal article OA:

• Publish in an OA journal whenever possible.
  • Look for OA journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Look for OA journals in the Journal Citation Reports database. Select Journals, then use the Categories and Open Access (OA) filters to find OA journals in your discipline.
  • As you read through the scholarly literature in your own research process, look for Creative Commons licenses and note which journals offer them.
  • If a journal offers only a Gold OA option, which requires payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC), and you cannot pay it, look for a waiver. Many journals offer waivers to researchers who cannot afford APCs.

• Already have a journal or two in mind? Review the journal's policies for information about OA options.  These policies are typically included on a journal's web site. You can also find most journal OA policies in Sherpa Romeo.

• If the publisher permits it, follow the Green OA path, and self-archive appropriate versions of your work. With Green OA, you will need to check your selected journal's policies (on their website or on Sherpa Romeo) to determine:
  • Where you can deposit your work. Publishers typically specify an institutional repository (such as UM's ScholarWorks) and/or an appropriate disciplinary repository.
  • If you need to apply an embargo. All institutional and disciplinary repositories support embargoes. 
  • Which version of the work you may make available in a repository:
    • Submitted version/pre-print
    • Accepted version/post-print
    • Published version/version of record
  • Which Creative Commons License you can/must apply. 
• If your selected journal does not offer an OA option, consider using this Author Addendum to retain some of your rights, including the right to make a version of your article Open Access. (Learn more about how you can protect your rights in this Author Rights brochure.)

Please contact me if you need help with any part of this process!

You may be wondering why you would want to publish a book or monograph Open Access. After all, scholars don't usually expect to sell their journal articles, but they may hope to earn a modest sum by selling copies of their book. You might be surprised to learn that publishers continue to sell print copies of OA books. In fact, some publishers' OA business models rely, to some degree, on the revenue from selling print copies of OA books. Authors can negotiate royalties on sales of books, OA or not, and the greater visibility of OA digital copies can lead to more sales. 

Publishing an OA book or monograph may seem challenging, but there are options:

• Publish with an OA book publisher. A list of OA book publishers is available as part of the Open Access Directory.
  • If the publisher requires a Book Publishing Charge (BPC), OAPEN's "Overview of available funding" provides several ideas for finding funding.  
• If you are affiliated with UM, consider publishing your book in ScholarWorks, UM's Open Access institutional repository. 
  • See former faculty member Clarence E. Burns' OA book: The University of Montana: A History Through the Lens of Physical Culture, PE, Health, Athletics, and Recreation, 1897-2019
  • See former faculty member Garon C. Smiths' open textbook: Water Topos: A 3-D Trend Surface Approach to Viewing and Teaching Aqueous Equilibrium Chemistry
• Check out the Authors Alliance. They offer guides and information about Open Access, Rights Reversion, Publication Contracts, Copyright, and Fair Use. They also offer tools, templates, and other resources that can help you make your work OA (even if it was previously published as closed.)

Copyright and Creative Commons licenses can be applied to all kinds of creative scholarship, including creative writing, performances, musical compositions, live performances, recordings, and works of art. However, the decision to make your creative work Open Access can be a complicated choice. Researchers in creative fields and in practice-based fields often rely on closed or subscription-based access in order to make a living.

In the Open Access book, Unlocking the Digital Age: The Musician's Guide to Research, Copyright, and Publishing, authors Kathleen DeLaurenti and Andrea I. Copeland devote an entire chapter to "Managing Your Creative Works", wherein they discuss when and how it may be appropriate to provide Open Access to your creative work. While this book was written primarily for musicians, the factors discussed in this chapter could be useful for creators in many different creative disciplines.