Tallinn University of Technology

Open Access Publishing

Open Access Publishing

Open Access comes in different colours. While we especially use the term green OA, gold OA and hybrid OA, other terms refine those broader terms. This tip addresses some of the Open Access flavours.

Diamond Open Access: not-for-profit, non-commercial organizations, associations or networks publish material that is made available online in digital format, is free of charge for readers and authors and does not allow commercial and for-profit re-use. “A non-profit academic publishing model that makes academic knowledge a common good”. The Diamond Open Access Model is introduced in the article The Diamond Model of Open Access Publishing: Why Policy Makers, Scholars, Universities, Libraries, Labour Unions and the Publishing World Need to Take Non-Commercial, Non-Profit Open Access Serious. 

Gold Open Access = Open Access publishing: Open Access journals provide immediate Open Access to the articles published. There is a large variety in business models and publishing methods. You can find an overview of peer reviewed Open Access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals .

Green Open Access = self-archiving: publish in the journal of your choice, deposit a version of the publication (usually but not necessarily a post-print) in a repository and make it publically available in Open Access, sometimes after an embargo period set by the publisher. An overview of Open Access Repositories can be found on OpenDOAR. Publishers’ policies on (self)archiving can be found on SHERPA/RoMEO.

Hybrid Open Access: Some publishers allow immediate Open Access to some of their articles on condition that an ‘Article Processing Charge - APC’ is paid.  In such journals, two types of articles coexist: those freely accessible and others only accessible through a subscription. Although being mainly responsible for the recent rise in available Open Access publications, ‘hybrid Open Access’ dosen’t take away subscription costs for those journals.

Platinum Open Access: Platinum Open Access is a model of scholarly publishing that does not charge author fees. The costs associated with scholarly publication are covered through other means, such as volunteer work, donations, subsidies, grants, etc.

Bronze articles are made free-to-read on the publisher website, without an explicit open license.

It is a firm recommendation of the European Research Council (ERC) that researchers archive a copy of an article, monograph or other publication published with the support of the Research Council in an open access repository. The pre-reviewed manuscript or publisher's file should be uploaded as soon as possible or at the latest when the publication is published. Open access must be guaranteed as soon as possible, but no later than six months after the official date of publication (in the social sciences and humanities, the delay or embargo may be up to 12 months).

Open Access Guidelines for research results funded by the ERC (revised February 2016)

In Estonia, the requirement that the full texts of publications completed because of competitive research grants for science have been made freely available in the Estonian Scientific Information System (ETIS) since 2013, unless the conditions for publication, copyright or intellectual property protection provide otherwise.

The Open Science Expert Committee of the Estonian Research Agency (ETAg) aims in the document "Open Science in Estonia" (June, 2016) that "full text (pdf) is required for approval of research articles in ETIS and whether the research article is closed ), or immediate open access (gold open access). It must also be possible to indicate the license conditions in the research article entry. In addition to other functions, ETIS must allow researchers to conveniently share their non-open access publications with colleagues."

    Open access publishing at Taltech

    Open Access Publishing Platforms

    • TalTech Data Repostory is a general-purpose open-access repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN. It allows researchers to deposit research papers, data sets, research software, reports, and any other research related digital artifacts. Research results can be found, referenced, and shared over a long period of time.
    •  Digital Collection of TalTech Library is to provide web-based access to the dissertations and graduation theses of the university, to the digitized textbooks and publications about TalTech history.

    Open Access Publishing (Gold) Contracts as of 2024:

    Green Open Access Publishing

    • Publish in Tallinn University of Technology repository TalTech Data

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