Publish Open Access for free or with a discount: Home

When you submit an article, always use your work email address from the Radboudumc or the Radboud University! 

Mail us: openaccess@ubn.ru.nl

Always deposit your publication in the Radboud Repository (also when you have published in an open access journal), for long-term preservation and findability via Google/Google Scholar and the national research portal Narcis. We check the copyrights for you.

This libguide is based on a Central Medical Library, UMCG publication.

The information provided has been carefully composed. While the information contained within the libguide is periodically updated, no guarantee is given that the information provided in this libguide is correct, complete, and up to date. Therefore we disclaim all liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to, or reliance on any information contained with this libguide.

Open access and the Dutch universities
The Dutch government aims to have publicly funded research freely accessible. That's why Dutch universities concluded agreements with several publishers about changing their journals into open access. The list on top of this guide shows all agreements applicable to Radboud University & Radboudumc researchers.

Open access and the NWO
NWO has made Open Access mandatory: all publications emerging from a 'call for proposals' published by NWO must be immediately accessible to everybody from the moment of publication. More info on the website of NWO.

Open access and the European Commission
Open access publishing is mandatory for all publications derived from projects recently funded by the European Commission. This applies to both finished and running FP7 projects, as well as  Horizon2020 projects. Authors can use both the Gold and Green routes to open access.

Most open access journals can easily compete with traditional journals in terms of quality, but they are more susceptible for predatory publishing (see glossary below). The following links are useful tools when selecting the right journal:

Glossary

• APC / Article Processing Charge / Author's fee:
  Article Processing Charge: a sum that an academic pays for the open access publication of his/her article. Also called author's fee.
• Big deal contract:
  a bulk contract between universities and a publisher which arranges upfront payment for publishing articles so that individual researchers don't have to pay when choosing to publish in an open access journal from that publisher.
• Diamond open access:
  diamond open access differs from gold open access in that the costs of editing, peer review, online publication, hosting, etc., are borne by an institution, fund or collaborative arrangement.
• Gold open access:
  publications are made available online through the publishers' own platforms. That usually means the publisher is paid in advance to make an article freely accessible immediately.
• Green open access:
  archiving a version of the article somewhere other than the publisher’s website where the final version of the article is hosted. E.g. in The Radboud Repository.
• Hybrid journal:
  some of the articles can only be read by subscribers and some can be read by anyone via open access.
• Predatory Publishers: 
  publishers that charge regular APCs, but provide limited/no peer review and publication services. They usually have a bad reputation, but they can easily fool researchers that aren't vigilant. These are almost always (but not exclusively) publishers that only publish in full open access (no subscriptions).
• Open Access:
  free and open online access to academic information such as publications and data.
• Open Access journal: 
  the articles are full-text available to readers at no cost. Instead, the author is charged with a fee (called an APC) for publishing an article. This contrasts with conventional journals for which the reader has to pay for a subscription, usually via a library.
• Q1 journals 
   the Journal Citation Reports provide yearly rankings of scientific journals. The first quartile (Q1) represents the top 25% journals within a subject category.