What is open access and what is it good for?

1 Introduction

Open Access (OA) has become a transformative force in scientific publishing, reshaping how research is disseminated, accessed, and utilized globally. The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, STM, says on its website [1]: “Between 2013 and 2023, the percentage of global articles, reviews and conference papers made available via gold [OA] has increased from 11 % to 38 %. In contrast, the percentage of journal articles, reviews, and conference papers available to read via subscription-only fell from 70 % (2013) to 52 % (2023).” Driven by authors, readers and funders, OA has become a regular way of scientific publication with some obvious benefits.

2 What is open access in scientific publishing?

Open Access refers to the unrestricted online availability of scholarly research, free from subscription or paywall limitations. Defined by initiatives such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative [2] and the Berlin Declaration [3], Open Access emphasizes two major elements: immediate, cost-free access to the public and freedom for readers to redistribute and use the material with proper attribution. OA publications often use Creative Commons licenses [4], with CC BY being one of the most permissive, allowing for broad reuse and distribution.

It should be noted that there are several different CC licenses. Some allow no derivative works (CC BY-ND), others require no limitations at all (CC0). MiM use the CC BY license which allows users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, as long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use, too.

While many OA journals employ Creative Commons (CC) licenses, some publishers use their own licenses. Some non-CC licenses restrict the right to reuse and remix the content, potentially limiting usage rights of the articles. Some offer additional rights for an additional fee. Therefore, authors and readers should consider the specific OA license (check publication charges) when evaluating journals for submission or articles for re-use.

3 What means gold open access?

A different angle is used when OA publications are grouped into Green, Gold, and Diamond OA, each offering distinct routes to accessible research:

1. Green Open Access (repositories) refers to self-archiving, where authors deposit their accepted manuscript in a repository, typically after an embargo period specified by the publisher. This approach enables public access without direct publisher involvement in OA provision.

2. Gold Open Access is where articles are immediately accessible upon publication, often with an Article Processing Charge (APC) paid by authors or funders. This is the model our journal, “Methods in Microscopy,” employs, providing unrestricted access.

3. Diamond (or Platinum) Open Access removes both access and APC barriers. In this model, neither authors nor readers incur costs, with publishing often funded by institutions or consortia. Diamond OA is especially beneficial for ensuring accessibility and equity, particularly in disciplines or regions where research funding is limited.

4 Why do publishing companies adopt open access instead of subscription models?

The shift from subscription-based models to Open Access is driven by several motivations. Most importantly, Open Access aligns with the demand for wider dissemination of research outcomes, especially in publicly funded research. Governments and funding bodies worldwide have increasingly supported mandates that require research outputs to be openly accessible. This pressure has led many publishers to adopt OA models, either fully or as an option alongside traditional subscription models.

Financially, the Open Access model relies on Article Processing Charges (APCs), paid by authors or their funders, instead of reader subscriptions. For publishers, this model can maintain or even enhance revenue streams, if there are only a limited number of subscriptions. Journals with a high number of subscriptions (such as nature) have difficulties switching to open access. They offer to turn single articles to open access for a surprisingly high APC.

For some emerging publishers, it has become an interesting business model to establish a lot of OA journals. The APCs promised significant revenues without large efforts for marketing or sales. Any software for author or manuscript management scaled easily with growing author numbers. That boomed within the last decade and brands such as Hindawi (sold to Wiley), MDPI or frontiers grew to significant size.

This boom seems over, Hindawi vanished within Wiley. MDPI and frontiers had to scale down significantly. A major problem is editorial quality of some of their journals. Many articles had to be retracted, for example. The publishing community reported on those problems in recent years in many excellent blog posts [6], [7].

5 What is predatory publishing?

For some publishers, the OA business model was so tempting that they took the chance to rip off authors. Such predatory publishing represents a major threat within the Open Access landscape. Predatory publishers are charging fees for minimal or non-existent editorial and peer-review services. They prioritize profit over scholarly rigor, accepting and disseminating poorly vetted or low-quality research. This practice harms the credibility of OA and presents risks to the academic community, including the publication of erroneous or misleading information.

The community has become aware of that and individuals, funders as well as national bodies have taken appropriate counter measures. Some host updated lists of predatory publishers. Most famous among them is Beall’s list, started by Jeffrey Beall, a librarian from the University of Colorado. That one was maintained until 2021, but other resources took over.

A safe way to determine the status of a journal is to check its entry in the Web of Science or other reputed registries of journals (scopus, DOAJ) with a constant quality management process.

6 What are recent trends in open access publishing?

As said in the abstract, the idea of OA publishing has established itself in the worldwide research community. One problem in the OA workflow was the APC payment by individual authors. That is in some cases resolved by so-called “transformative agreements”. Also known as Read-and-Publish or Publish-and-Read agreements, they allow institutions to pay for both access to subscription journals and APCs for Open Access publications within the same deal. Authors are freed from individual payments.

This has helped foster OA adoption among traditional publishers while also meeting institutional mandates for Open Access. While authors and funders value such agreements, they have become a disadvantage in the marketplace for smaller publishers, who are less likely to negotiate such agreements with large library consortia or national institutions.

Another trend is the increasing scrutiny of open access publications. The blog Retraction Watch, for example, keeps a close eye on where papers are retracted. This is helpful in identifying scientific fraud long after the publication date. In 2022 they added a feature to identify hijacked journals, a method where the brand of a legitimate journal is hijacked by a malicious third party for predatory purposes. More recently, they have also published a list of papers and peer reviews with evidence of ChatGPT authorship.

There have also been major changes in the area of impact analysis. In very simplified terms, the impact factor or journal impact factor is an important scientometric indicator of the quality of a journal. It is calculated every year by Clarivate, which compiles the figures from its Web of Science database. The people at Clarivate keep a close eye on publication trends and suspend or exclude journals if they have doubts about their scientific rigour.

A recent example of their scrutiny was when they started to re-evaluate the biomedical OA journal eLife. In fact, they put evaluation of eLife “on hold” and reevaluate their review process. It was eLife’s practice of publishing articles without accepting or rejecting them that led to this decision. Such measures are not uncommon anymore, as Retraction Watch stated a “string of major journals put on hold from Web of Science” [5].

As a result, the Open Access community is witnessing increasing calls for stricter quality control, transparency in editorial processes, and a recommitment to high peer-review standards. Another result of quality problems in OA publishing is a return of authors to the main publishers who record increasing submission numbers.

Those who want to read more about current trends in scholarly publishing are referred to the excellent blogs Journalology [6] and “The Scholarly Kitchen” [7].

7 Conclusions

Open Access has unquestionably advanced scientific communication by removing access barriers, promoting equity in knowledge dissemination, and supporting innovation across disciplines. Yet, as the model matures, it faces challenges that require thoughtful solutions, particularly in maintaining editorial quality amid a growing landscape of economic pressures.

As a field, we must continue to support and promote Open Access while upholding rigorous standards that protect the integrity of scientific scholarship. “Methods in Microscopy” is committed to contributing to these goals by providing a platform for high-quality research with a transparent and rigorous peer review process.