Journal Publishing

Gold Open Access is a model in which a publisher makes the journal’s content openly available by default, and lowers legal barriers for reusing the content. This model has widely been shown to improve research reproducibility, and to increase the research’s impact on other researchers, public policy, and news reporting, and more. Under this model, because the publisher makes all published content immediately and freely available, the journal is financially sustained through means other than subscriptions or per-article fees.

The Open Access Directory’s OA Journal Business Models page provides a strong overview of various funding models for gold open access journals. In brief, some of the revenue sources that it details and defines include:

• Crowdfunding
  • Journals using this model encourage their broader communities, or “crowd,” to choose to fund their production costs.
• Value-add services
  • Similar to the crowdfunding model, this model encourages broader communities to fund the journal, but specifically encourages sustained regular donations or “subscriptions,” offering added services or features on top of the OA content for subscribers. Examples might include alternate formats for articles or early previews of coming content.
• Offering branded products for sale
  • This model can be pursued either internally or through an external vendor.
• Priced editions
  • The journal provides open access to one edition, and sells another. The open access edition should include the full text and other information; the priced edition may include value-added features, such as print or file formats that readers may prefer.
• Advertising
  • The journal uses web advertising to generate revenue, usually dependent on the number of users who view the advertisements, or the number of users who interact with the advertisements.
  • See also the Directory of Open Access Journal’s recommendations for advertising.
• Submission or publication fees
  • The journal charges the author(s) a fee upon acceptance or submission of an article.
  • It is important to note that, although many publishers use article processing charges (APCs) to “replace” subscription and article fees that readers pay, research indicates that they create inequity in the open access movement. (See Who’s writing open access (OA) articles? Characteristics of OA authors at Ph.D.-granting institutions in the United States by Olejniczak and Wilson.)
• Fundraising
  • The journal solicits donations from individuals and organizations within their networks, periodically or continuously.
• Endowed support or subsidy through an organization or institution
  • An organization or institution provides funding, facilities, equipment, personnel, or other resources to support the journal’s operation, in whole or in part, on a one-time or continuing basis. This can take place through the membership fees of a membership organization, endowment funds built through fundraising or other means, and more.

Funding models and definitions are adapted from the Open Access Directory’s OA Journal Business Models list, openly licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.