Difference between Green and Gold Open Access

Table of Contents

The possibility of showing and sharing your own work to the world is not only gratifying for you but also extremely enriching for science progress and society in general. Who knows…maybe some of your ideas will trigger scientific breakthroughs in the future, changing the world forever!

Despite the general consensus regarding the benefits of open access to scholarly literature, enabling academic research to be seen and shared beyond your control might also lead to its unrestricted re-use in manners that you did not want in the first place. The good news is that you can let everyone see to your work but limit its reuse, leaving both laid-back and antsy authors satisfied. This is called Open Access.

Open Access is when publications are available online – to everyone – at no cost and with few restrictions regarding reuse. The unrestricted dissemination of research is especially important for authors, readers and funders.

Actually, there are quite a lot of variants of Open Access types, each one of them usually named after a color: gold, green, hybrid, bronze, platinum, and black. Different publishers may use one or more of these options, although the most practiced are Green and Gold Open Access.

To grant Open Access to your paper in a Journal, you can choose to do so before submission, up until it’s already published. You will probably have to choose one of the following paths:

Gold and Green Open Access:

	Gold Open Access	Green Open Access (sharing your subscription article)
Options	Publish in an open access journal or in a journal which supports open access (hybrid)	Link to your article Select a journal that features an open archive Select a journal that participates in CHORUS Self-archive a version of your article
Access	Public access is to the final published article Access is immediate	Free access to a version of your article Time delay may apply (embargo period)
Fee	Open access fee is paid by the author, or on their behalf for example by their institution or funding body	No fee is payable by the author as publishing costs are covered by library subscriptions
Use	Authors can choose between a commercial and noncommercial user license	Accepted manuscripts should attach a CC-BY-NC-ND user license Authors retain the right to reuse their articles for a wide range of purposes

Gold Open Access:

In this model, articles and contents related to them can be accessed at no cost on the journal’s website. Gold Open Access articles are licensed under Creative Commons Licenses (CC), which means they can be freely distributed and shared so that other people can build their own work based on them.

Green Open Access:

This variant of Open Access enables authors to archive their own work on a website controlled by them, or their funder, or on an independent repository. The deposited version of the article may or may not be final. It might be the accepted manuscript by the journal or an almost final one, after peer review. In this case, it is called “post print.”

Unlike the gold route of Open Access, some journals demand an embargo period – which may vary from six to twelve months in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and more than one year in humanities, arts and social sciences – before the actual self-archiving permission. They argue that subscription revenues are affected, although this idea is not particularly embraced by all. In some specific topics with time-limited interest, or ongoing interest – such as Zika outbreaks – embargoes have been suspended.

Benefits of Open Access:

1. For Communities and Stakeholders

Most research articles aim to impact other researchers; either in the same field of research or related. Open Access grants more investigation sources for scientists, improving their chances of delivering original and up-to-date work.

2. For Universities

Many universities offer institutional repositories to accommodate their researchers’ published articles. They are also working on practices and policies that enable faculty research to be distributed without needing the publishers’ involvement. This allows widespread dissemination, a key factor for more and more globalized education.

3. For Low-Income Countries

In low-income countries, Open Access to research is most important. Institutions, researchers, scientists, and health care professionals don’t have the necessary funds to access scholarly literature. Granting Open Access to quality research articles is granting their intellectual equity among their high-income countries’ colleagues.

Elsevier’s Language Editing services ensure your manuscript is written in correct scientific English before submission and Open Access. Remember, by enabling Open Access to your work, your audience will broaden extremely and you will not only be seen and rated by the quality of your scientific work but also how it is presented and written, demanding a carefully weaved discourse to impact the public.

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

We know that, as an academic researcher, you have many things to do to stay relevant.

Writing a manuscript is a crucial part of your endeavors.

That’s why we, at Elsevier Author Services, support you throughout your publication journey with a suite of products and services that help improve your manuscript before submission.