1. Open Access

What is Open Access?
Open Access , according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative , is digital scientific literature that is online, free of charge, and free from most licensing and copyright restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author. 

 It is fully compatible with peer review, copyright, revenue, prestige, quality, and the many other services associated with conventional scholarly literature. 

 If you want to learn the basics of Open Access in 5 minutes, watch the video below. 

 

 By  SHB Werkgroep Onderzoeksondersteuning and licensed under  Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike .

Is publishing in a "pure" Open Access journal the only way to do Open Access?
No. 

 Publishing in a Gold Open Access journal (pay-to-publish) is the Gold route to Open Access (Gold OA). Works published via the Gold route are immediately accessible and are generally protected by an open licence such as Creative Commons . 

 However, there are other ways to publish in open access: the Diamond route (Diamond OA), the Green route (Green OA), and the Hybrid route (Hybrid OA). 

 The Diamond route (Diamond OA) is a model in which neither readers nor authors pay fees. Publication costs are covered by institutions, universities, libraries, or public funding. This model aims to guarantee equitable open access, without financial barriers for researchers, while ensuring the immediate dissemination of publications. 

 The Green route refers to the parallel publication (or self-archiving) of a version of the manuscript in an institutional repository. Open repositories may be institutional, such as our own SERVAL/IRIS, or discipline-based. Publication is often delayed (embargo period) and is only permitted for the author accepted manuscript (AAM), also known as the post-print. This is the manuscript accepted for publication (after peer review) but before any typesetting by the publisher. There is no additional cost for researchers following this route. 

 The Hybrid route (Hybrid OA) concerns subscription journals that offer the possibility of making certain articles open access upon payment of publication fees. In this model, a single journal may contain both restricted-access and open-access articles. Although this option allows immediate access to the relevant articles, it is criticised for the risk of "double-dipping." 

 Below you can find a diagram showing the routes to Open Access.

An Open Access journal has invited me to publish. How do I know if it is a reputable journal?
With the rapid growth of OA, "parasitic" or "predatory" OA journals exploit the author-pays model for their own benefit. Authors, typically solicited by email, are invited to submit articles that are systematically accepted in exchange for publication fees or APCs, regardless of the scientific quality of the work submitted. It should be noted that this problem only arises for Gold OA journals. 

 Jeffrey Beall, of the University of Colorado, created a site in 2008, scholarlyoa.com, which was closed in January 2017 and contained a list of potentially predatory journals based on 52 criteria. This list was used as a standard until its disappearance. An archived version is still available , and other sites have tried to fill the gap . It is also possible to consult the DOAJ to assess the credibility of an OA journal. 

 An intersectoral initiative, Think. Check. Submit. , offers a simple checklist to help researchers evaluate the reliability of a journal or publisher. It is a particularly useful tool for avoiding predatory journals. 

 Another relevant resource is Compass to Publish , developed by the University of Liège. This interactive tool allows you to evaluate a journal by answering a series of structured questions (transparency, editorial board, peer review process, etc.) and provides clear decision-making guidance for researchers. 

 In practice, certain warning signs should raise attention: persistent solicitations, abnormally short publication timelines, lack of transparency about fees, a questionable editorial board, or absence of indexing in recognised databases. Conversely, a reputable journal provides clear information about its evaluation process, editorial policies, and any fees.

Can I publish a monograph in Open Access?
Yes. 

 Although OA for journal articles is well developed, OA for monographs is a nascent area and practices are far less standardised. However, a growing number of publishers allow the digital version of a book to be published in OA at the time of publication (Gold OA). The Directory of Open Access Books ( DOAB ) is a list of peer-reviewed academic books. OpenEdition is another platform primarily for French-language books. Both are excellent sources for finding publishers that already publish in Open Access. Publication costs for Open Access books are funded by the SNSF for all researchers in Switzerland. 

 It is also possible to publish books in Open Access via the Green route (Green OA), i.e. self-archiving of the manuscript with opening after an embargo. In this case, researchers must negotiate with publishers on a case-by-case basis.

Do Open Access mandates undermine my academic freedom?
The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines academic freedom as " the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom to study any topic that arouses intellectual interest, to present findings to students, colleagues, and others, to publish data and conclusions without control or censorship, and to teach in the manner one considers professionally appropriate. " 

 From this perspective, Open Access mandates that allow for a combination of Open Access routes should not limit the academic freedom of researchers. 

 Indeed, by permitting both routes, researchers can choose the most appropriate dissemination channel for their work and then follow the necessary route to publish it in open access. Gold OA allows immediate open publication in OA journals and books, while Green OA allows deferred parallel publication of the article in a subscription journal and the author's manuscript (or post-print) in an institutional repository.

Can I deposit my old publications in SERVAL?
In principle, yes, but you must first check which rights you've transfered to your editor. 

 Use this checklist to know where to find this information and to know if and how the deposit is possible.