Open Access Policy

The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing is a statement which defines the concept of open access and then supports that concept. The statement requires that, to qualify as open access, a contribution must not only be usable free of charge, but also users must be permitted "to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution".

There are two common methods usually categorized as either gold or green open access:

● Gold open access - Gold OA allows the final version of an article or manuscript freely and permanently accessible for everyone, immediately after publication. The authors retain the copyright for the article and most of the permission barriers are removed. Gold OA articles can be published either in fully OA journals or hybrid journals.

● Green open access - Green OA (also referred to as self-archiving) is the practice of placing a version of an author‘s manuscript into a repository, making it freely accessible for everyone. The version that can be deposited into a repository is dependent on the funder or publisher. Unlike Gold OA the copyright for these articles usually sits with the publisher of, or the society affiliated with, the title and there are restrictions as to how the work can be reused.