What is 'Open Access'?

Open access (OA) is a mechanism by which manuscripts are distributed online, free of cost or other access barriers. OA allows an unrestricted access via the Internet to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, thesis, book chapters, and monographs.

What is Conventional (non-open access) journals?

Conventional journals may be printed, and/or Internet based, but the publishing costs are covered through access tolls such as subscriptions, site licenses or pay-per-view charges.

What does it mean License agreement?

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Every license helps creators — we call them licensors if they use our tools — retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially. Every Creative Commons license also insures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. Every Creative Commons license works around the world and lasts as long as an applicable copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright). These common features serve as the baseline, on top of which licensors can choose to grant additional permissions when deciding how they want their work to be used.

More information links from Directory of Open Access Journals :

• Open Access Overview by Peter Suber
• The Budapest Open Access Initiative
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities
• The Open Access Bibliography

Why authors should make their articles 'Open Access'?

Research published open access is available to anyone across the globe, at any time. Greater visibility can result in increased readership and citations of your research. Both can help your career and funding prospects.

There’s increasing pressure on researchers to show the societal impact of their research. Open access can help your work reach new readers, beyond those with easy access to a research library. Publishing OA can help policymakers, non-government agencies, the media, educators, and practitioners to put your research into action.

Why does Open Access articles have article-processing charges?

Publishing research content in OA is not possible without incurring production expenses.  The article processing charges are collected because readers do not have to pay subscription charges, as a result the published research content is available with immediate, barrier-free and world-wide open access in full text.

The article processing charges pay for:

• Immediate world-wide unrestricted open access to the full text.
• Production costs involved in editorial management and use of electronic tools for peer review

and publication.

• Marketing and promotion activities to increase citations.
• Maintaining inclusion in CrossRef to ensure electronic citations in other journals.
• Production of manuscripts in various formats for online publication delivery.

 

Is it possible to waive / to get discounts on the open access charges if the author is not able pay?

Waiver requests are considered on a case to case basis. Individual waiver or discount requests may be considered after internal editorial approval.  As per policy and editorial recommendation, authors may be able to get a discount / waiver on article processing charges.

How long does it take to have a paper published?

Realistically, peer-review process may take a month to allow reviewers to familiarize with content and write their opinion. Based on the reviewers’ opinion the paper may or may not need to undergo the revision. Our editors will be happy to help on every step of the process. After the paper is approved for publication, we expect to receive a payment before publishing or sufficient reason for waiver. In production, the formatted for public view paper will be sent to authors for proof reading and after corrections become published for the public view. Usually duration from submission to publication takes 2-3 months.