Open Access

Self-archiving is the practice of depositing an open version of your work online. It provides a means to make your work OA, even when you are publishing in a subscription journal. Most, but not all, scholarly journals now permit some form of self-archiving by their authors.

Channels to self-archive:

   1. use an institutional repository, like NYU's Faculty Digital Archive

   2. use a subject-based repository, such as PubMed Central, ArXiv, or Humanities Commons CORE

   3. on your own website or online profile

Tools to help you self-archive for green OA:

• Sherpa Romeo: Database that helps you find out if your journal permits self-archiving, and if so, what version they allow you to self-archive
• ShareYourPaper.org: Tool (in beta) that allows you to input your journal article DOI, drag and drop a version of your paper, and verify that it is the version that your journal allows for self-archiving.

Even if a publisher does not normally allow for self-archiving of your work, you can still negotiate those terms into your publishing agreement.

The list below includes just a few open access publishers; there exist many more.

Image: "Share" by GotCredit via Flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Some organizations offer you a place to share your scholarly output. They work as scholarly social networks that allow you to interact with others in your field and share work and ideas. It’s important to learn as much as you can about these organizations by reading their terms of use. Some, like ResearchGate and Academia.edu, seem like nonprofit entities but are actually run by for-profit companies who may or may not sell your private data. As such, sharing your work on their sites may be a violation of your publication agreement. Others, such as Humanities Commons or ScholarlyHub, are actual nonprofit groups run by and for scholars like you. In addition, many of these nonprofit organizations have an explicit mission to support the open dissemination of scholarship through open access.

For help in figuring out the difference between different scholarly sharing platforms and the ways you can legally share you work on them, please reach out to your subject librarian or the scholarly communication librarian.

Some journals, known as predatory journals charge large APCs without providing the peer review and editorial support that can be expected from a quality scholarly publication.

Common red flags associated with predatory publishers include:

• Using false or misappropriated ISSNs;
• Posting fake academics on the editorial board or using the names of actual academics for the editorial board without their permission;
• Accepting and publishing articles exceptionally quickly without peer review or quality control;
• Repeatedly contacting and harassing scholars to submit articles and serve on editorial boards.

And keep in mind, you can always contact your library subject specialist for assistance with assessing the reputability of a publisher.