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Open access : what does it mean?

Open access

Open Access is the immediate, online, free availability of research outputs without restrictions on its use. The research outputs include peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, monographs and datasets of various kinds.
The European Community and funding agencies require open access to the scholarly outputs in compliance with the Budapest Open access Initiative (BOAI), the Berlin Declaration (2003), the UE legislation which Italian Law 7 Ottobre, 2013 n. 112 (pages 22-26) conformed to.

Please, be aware that some funds require open access to the final products of the research they funded. Check the requirements of your fund here: OpenAIRE | Search for Research Outcomes

The two main ways of publishing open access are:

Green Road

Self-Archiving the permitted publisher’s version in an institutional repository (link a IRIS) or in a subject-based archives (ì.e. arxiv).

Generally, the publisher allows the Author’s Accepted Manuscript version without the publisher’s layout and already submitted to the peer-review process (known also as postprint).

The publisher can request an embargo period (the publication is available open access after a certain period).

See SHERPA/ROMEO database for the journals or publisher’ self-archiving policies.

Gold Road

  • Publish on an Open access journal. To find an Open Access journal visit DOAJ, an online directory that indexes high-quality open access journals (this option usually requires the payment of a fee).
  • Publish on a Hybrid journal paying an additional fee for the open access option.

See the SISSA procedure for the payment of the Article Processing Charge (APC).

If you are publishing your work we suggest you check our transformative agreeements page in order to be aware of the publishers which SISSA has agreements with: under these contracts APC for open access publication in hybrid journals are paid by SISSA. More details at Read&Publish Transformative Agreements | SISSA Library

Before you submit check also BEALLSLIST , a database which lists predatory publishers and their related journals

A tip: when you fill in your submission online form remember that “subscription based model” means that only rearders who have a subscription to that journal will be able to access your paper.