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 of teachers to inquire intostudy any subjecttopic that evokes theirarouses intellectual concern;interest, to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others;others, to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship;censorship, and to teach in the manner theyone considerconsiders professionally appropriate."

From this point of view,perspective, Open Access mandates that allow for a mixcombination of Open Access scenarios (namely, a mix of Green and Gold Open Access)routes should not limit the academic freedom of researchers.

Indeed, by allowingpermitting both roads,routes, researchers can choose the most appropriate outletdissemination channel for their works,work and subsequentlythen follow the necessary roadroute to grantpublish Openit Accessin toopen them.access. Gold OA allows forimmediate theopen publication in OA journals and books, whereaswhile Green OA allows for thedeferred parallel publication of the article in a subscription journal and the authorauthor's manuscript (or post-print) in an institutional repository.