A second option for making your work open access is to publish an article in a relevant OA journal ("gold OA"). The forced migration field has experienced a bit of a surge in scholarly OA journal publishing, so prospective authors have more choices now than even just a year or so ago. Start by checking out this partial list that I compiled. For a more comprehensive place to look, try the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).But before you dive into a search for a suitable title, keep in mind the following:
1) Business Models: OA journals employ a variety of business models to cover their production costs, one of which involves charging a fee for an accepted article to be published (also referred to as an "Article Processing Charge," or APC). Because the bill for the fee usually goes to the submitting author, this model has also become known as "author pays." More often than not, it is usually the author's funder or employer who ends up footing the bill. (Although see this blog post for more information about the uneven impact of APCs on certain authors.) That said, of the journals listed in the a/m DOAJ, most do not charge publication fees. This type of OA journal is often referred to as providing "diamond open access."
2) Quality: OA journals vary in quality, just like traditionally-published journals. But the relative ease of launching online journals and the lure of APCs have attracted some less-than-reputable publishers to the open access scene. So here are a few resources to help assess a journal's credentials:
- Search for a title in DOAJ (this blog post describes the process the directory undertook to weed out so-called "predatory journals");
- Use the criteria highlighted in this library resource to perform your own evaluation of an individual OA journal or publisher.
3) Peer Review: Some funders will only provide support for research published in peer-reviewed OA journals. However, not all OA journals represented in the DOAJ or on my list are peer-reviewed. While good editors can still ensure adherence to high quality standards, the absence of peer review may prove to be a sticking point in some situations.
4) OA Spectrum: Some OA journals are more open than others. As noted in the first post, the definition of open access refers to price and permission barriers. Some journals remove price barriers (i.e., articles are free to read) but may retain permission barriers (e.g., articles are still copyrighted). Other journals remove price barriers and at least some permission barriers. Two terms coined by Peter Suber to capture these distinctions are "gratis OA" for the former and "libre OA" for the latter. (For an even more finely tuned measure of openness, refer to this chart.) Using Creative Commons licenses can help clarify how open a given work is. (You can read more on these in this blog post.)
Resources:
- Browse for both OA journals and articles in those journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals; you can also filter search results by various fields including publication charges and licenses.
- Law reviews are very often gratis OA, but they are not well represented in the DOAJ. Another source is the Electronic Journals Library (select "Jurisprudence" and tick "freely available" on the right).
- If you receive an email inviting you to publish in an OA journal you are not familiar with, follow the guidance provided in the Evaluating Journals toolkit to help you confirm its bona fides.