{"id":7031,"date":"2024-10-10T11:34:14","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T16:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/?p=7031"},"modified":"2024-11-05T16:08:47","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T22:08:47","slug":"learning-about-diamond-open-access-oa-week-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2024\/10\/10\/learning-about-diamond-open-access-oa-week-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning about Diamond Open Access\u2013OA Week 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the week of Oct. 21\u201327, 2024, the University of Iowa Libraries is celebrating International Open Access Week<\/a> by sharing updates and information about all things open access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Libraries\u2019 Scholarly Impact Department<\/a>, we get a lot of questions from UI authors who are interested in publishing their research open access (OA), but don\u2019t have funding available to pay for costly article processing charges<\/a> (APCs). While the Libraries have several open access agreements<\/a> in place to cover these costs for select publishers, they don\u2019t cover everything. Without grant money or funds from your department, you can be on the hook for thousands of dollars to make your work open. It might seem at times like OA is out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But did you know that 73% of open access journals do not charge an APC<\/a>? That\u2019s right. Most OA journal titles are what we call diamond OA<\/a>, meaning that they are free for the reader and free for the author. The cost of making the publication OA is absorbed by the publisher, usually a scholarly society or university department or library operating on a small or non-existent budget. You can see diamond OA articles published by UI authors in this collection from Iowa Research Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may be thinking, \u201cif diamond OA is so common, why have I never heard of it?\u201d Scholars choose to publish in journals that will help bolster their reputations and careers. Promotion and tenure committees often look at propriety metrics such as impact factor<\/a> to determine how a publication should be considered as part of a scholar\u2019s portfolio. These metrics are created by and optimized for the same entities that publish the journals charging the high APCs. So, you can see how and why diamond OA journals struggle to compete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, there are diamond OA journals that are widely read and perform well against standard metrics. If you are an author interested in exploring diamond OA titles to submit your work, try searching the Directory of Open Access Journals<\/a> (DOAJ) for titles in your discipline. On the results screen, tick the box for \u201csee journals without fees\u201d to explore vetted diamond OA journals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 If you are an editor of a diamond OA journal, consider these steps to boost your journal\u2019s visibility:<\/p>\n\n\n\n