Open access publishers

"This is a very exciting time in scholarly publishing. We are able to move beyond open access and work to create a new ecosystem and infrastructure for scholarly publications and communications."
Dr. Caroline Sutton, Co-Founder of Co-Action Publishing and Director at Infrastructure Services for Open Access

There are a growing number of new academic publishers that have chosen open access as their exclusive business model. Most publishers, such as Copernicus, PLoS, Biomed, Frontiers, MDPI and PeerJ, have yet to establish a long tradition. Publication costs (APCs) are below the market average of EUR 1,500.

In 2016 the following numbers of articles of Dutch authors, both in the role of correspondance author as of co-author are published at publishers with an open access model:

publishers	open access articles	Authorship
MDPI	218	corresponding and co-authors
Copernicus	216	corresponding and co-authors
PLoS	292	corresponding
Frontiers	180	corresponding
Biomed	373	corresponding
Springer Open	51	corresponding
Elsevier	119	corresponding
Wiley OA	224	corresponding
TOTALS	1539	corresponding and co-authors

This data has been updated on 9 November 2016. No rights can be derived from this table

Increasingly, large traditional publishers are also publishing exclusively open access journals alongside their existing subscription-based journals. They are Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis group, Nature Publishing, SAGE and Oxford University Press

Directory of Open Access Journals

The majority of open access journal titles are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (9.400 journals). DOAJ strives to provide journals with the quality mark (the DOAJ Seal).

Directory of Open Access Books

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) refers to open access books on the websites of the publishers. These are peer reviewed books published under an open licence (mostly CC licences), so the books are 'free to read' and 'free to share'. January 2017 DOAB contains 6.500 books from 175 publishers.

OASPA

Many open access publishers are members of OASPA, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

Open access publishers with a dubious reputation

Some entities have attempted to exploit the business model of open access publishing by charging large fees to authors without providing the proper editorial and publishing services associated with more established and legitimate journals. Please go to the Quality Issues section to find out how you can identify these so-called predatory journals.

National open access agreements

Negotiations with the major academic publishers about the renewal of the big deals will be conducted in 2015-2018. The transition to open access will be on the agenda. The negotiations are held in close consultation between the VSNU and UKB (the partnership of university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands). Koen Becking (Tilburg University) and Gerard Meijer (Radboud University Nijmegen) have been nominated by the General Board of the VSNU to manage the process.

article processing charge (APC)