What Are Open-Access Journals?

Peer-Review Process

• All scientific work that is submitted to a journal needs to under go a peer-review process. In this process the scientific work to be published is sent to other experts in the field. These experts are normally nominated by the authors but the publisher may also deem it necessary to nominate their own. The expert will then return comments to the editor, who will make a decision on whether to publish the article. Generally speaking, since articles are more available, it is harder to get published in an open-access journal.

Typical Charges For Standard Journals

• Normal journals will have a publication charge to the authors. This will vary from journal to journal but will typically be in the region of $60 per page. Once an article is published there is an additional charge to whoever wants to access it. Typical subscription costs for an annual subscription to a journal is approximately $1,000 for four issues.

Typical Charges For Open-Access Journals

• Open-access journals do not charge readers for articles and hence have to recover the cost from the authors. A typical cost for publishing an article in an open-access journal is approximately $900.

Common Open-Access Journals

• Due to their high visibility, open-access journals are becoming more popular among publishers. Some common open-access journals include:

  New Journal of Physics: Covering all aspects of Physics.

  American Institute of Physics Advances: Covering all aspects of Physics

  Advances in Environmental Biology: Covering all aspects of environmental Biology.

  Online Journal of Organic Chemistry: Aspects of organic Chemistry.

  All open-access journals are Web-based only.