Open Access at UTSA

What authors need to know about Open Access Publishing and UTSA Libraries support for OA

What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) refers to digital, scholarly content that is available online and accessible to anyone with the technological means of accessing it. OA literature is available free of charge and has few, if any, copyright or licensing restrictions. OA aims to remove pricing and copyright barriers to equalize access to information across the globe.

Types of Open Access

Gold Open Access

  • In the gold OA model, the publisher makes all articles and related content available for free immediately on the journal's website. In such publications, articles are openly licensed for sharing and reuse.
  • Many gold OA publishers charge an article processing charge (APC) or publication charge
  • Gold OA journals are entirely open access and do not involve a subscription fee for the reader

Hybrid Open Access

  • A hybrid open access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access, but not all.
  • Similar to gold OA, hybrid OA requires the payment of a publication fee or APC
  • Subscribers continue to pay for access to the non-OA content in the journal

Diamond Open Access

  • Diamond open access refers to publications that are distributed with no subscription fees or publication/article processing charges
  • Publications are openly licensed for sharing and re-use.

Bronze Open Access

  • Sometimes, publishers will make journal content publicly accessible on their websites for a limited period of time, then revert back to allowing access only through subscriptions.
  • Bronze OA articles are not openly licensed for reuse

Green Open Access

  • Green OA refers to institutional or scholarly repositories that offer open access to that institution’s resources.  The works in the repository may be the finalized version of a work, or it can be a draft of a work before it is edited and peer reviewed.
  • Runner Research Press (RRP) is UTSA's scholarly repository and is an example of Green OA.

Benefits of Open Access

Promote the Free Flow of Ideas and Information

  • COVID-19 has proven the importance of being able to quickly share research results across the globe. If research is locked behind paywalls, it can impede scientific progress.
  • By making a concerted effort to publish OA, you can contribute to the advancement of human knowledge in a meaningful way.

Increases the Visibility of Research

  • By removing pricing and copyright barriers, more people have access to OA research than traditional journals.
  • This is important not only for laypeople, but for researchers and students across the world from resource-scares institutions.

Citation Advantage

  • There is some evidence that open access works are cited more often than those that are not open.

Allows for Compliance with Public Access Funder Mandates

  • As of 2025, all federal funders require that publications and datasets from federally funded research be made immediately available to the public with no charge.
  • Publishing open access is one route to complying with funder public access mandates.

Finding Reputable Open Access Journals