Open Access

Open access refers to free, unrestricted online access to research outputs.

There are two main paths to open access:

Diamond or gold open access 

  • publishing in an open access journal which makes its contents freely and immediately available online 
  • Diamond open access:
    • Journals which do not charge fees to either authors or readers
    • Most (70%) of open access journals follow this model
  • Gold open access:
    • Journals which charge authors a fee – called an article processing charge (APC) – to publish
    • Journals owned by major commercial publishers, such as Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, etc., are most likely to levy expensive APCs

Green open access  

  • publishing in a subscription-based journal and then depositing a copy of your article in a subject or institutional repository, such as the Brock Digital Repository 
  •  no article processing charges are required

Green open access is specified by the Brock University Open Access Policy: 

“all Brock Scholars are expected to deposit an electronic copy of their academic journal articles in the Brock University Digital Repository by the date of publication.” 

Open Access Support

Brock Digital Repository

An online open access archive showcasing and preserving the Brock community’s scholarly output.

Add your work to the repository:

Funding for Open Access Publishing

The Library provides direct grants to help Brock researchers pay article processing charges and also invests in agreements with publishers to provide free/discounted publishing in open access journals. 

Scholarly Journals at Brock

The Library supports several open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals

Learn More

Questions?

Contact Elizabeth Yates, Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian, at eyates@brocku.ca