Open Access Journals
A fully open access journal is one in which all articles are published open access. There are no APCs to pay.
Hybrid Journals
A hybrid journal is a subscription journal that offers authors the option to make their work openly accessible through the payment of an APC.
APC
APC stands for "article processing charge." It refers to the fee that some journals charge to make an article openly accessible. APCs range in cost and generally range from $1000 - $5000. An APC may also be called a "publication fee" and may be paid by funders, universities, or authors.
Embargo
An embargo is a period of time when access to a publication is restricted. Some publishers specify an embargo period, such as 12 or 18 months, before allowing an article to be made available in an open access institutional repository. Open Policy Finder contains information about journal publishers' embargoes.
OA Policies
Some colleges and universities have adopted institutional open access policies in which the faculty grant the institution permission to make their scholarly articles openly accessible in an institutional repository. You can view a model OA Policy and good practices for creating and implementing an institutional OA Policy. To see a list of institutions that have adopted an open access policy, please visit the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) page.
OA Mandates
Open access mandates are requirements by funders, institutions, and/or governments to make research and scholarship available open access. Examples include the National Science Foundation's Public Access Initiative and the United Kingdom's Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Excellence Framework (REF) open access requirement. The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) is a searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require or request their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.