What are the best open access models

Which Open Access Models are the Best?

by

Table of Contents

Introduction

The scholarly publishing landscape is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, driven by the ideals and practicalities of open access. For centuries, the business of sharing academic research relied on a subscription model, erecting paywalls that turned the fruits of publicly funded research into commodities accessible only to those—or their institutions—who could afford hefty fees. 

Open access, simply put, is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with rights to reuse these articles in the digital environment. It’s a paradigm shift, a sort of academic revolt against the high costs and limited reach of traditional journals. The goal is noble: to democratize knowledge, accelerate scientific discovery, and ensure that research has the widest possible societal impact.

However, moving mountains—or in this case, moving the entrenched publishing industry—isn’t simple or cheap. Open access isn’t a monolith; it’s a spectrum of distinct business models and pathways, often confusingly categorized by a spectrum of colors. The core dilemma remains: if the reader doesn’t pay, who foots the bill for the rigorous process of peer review, editing, production, and long-term archiving that gives scholarly work its authority? 

The answer lies in the various open access models, each with its own financial structure, set of benefits, and—let’s be honest—its own set of headaches. Deciding which model is “best” isn’t about finding a single winner; it’s about evaluating which one offers the most equitable, sustainable, and high-quality path forward for the diverse global research community.

The Gold Standard: Gold Open Access and the APC Model

The most prominent and commercially dominant form of open access is the Gold OA route. In this model, the final published article is made immediately and permanently available online for anyone to read and reuse, usually under a Creative Commons license. The key characteristic of Gold OA is where the money comes from: the publication costs are typically covered by an Article Processing Charge (APC), paid by the author, their institution, or their research funder, rather than by the reader.

The Allure and Economics of Gold OA

Gold OA journals can be one of two types: fully open access journals (where every article is OA) or Hybrid journals (subscription journals that offer an open access option for individual articles upon payment of an APC). Fully open access journals like those published by PLOS or BioMed Central have been pioneers in demonstrating that high-quality, peer-reviewed publishing can thrive without a paywall. 

Proponents love Gold OA because it ensures immediate, unencumbered access to the authoritative version of the research, which often leads to higher visibility and citation rates. Studies have shown that the percentage share of global scholarly articles made available via Gold open access has significantly increased, from around 14% in 2014 to roughly 40% by 2024. This rapid growth highlights its position as the dominant pathway to fully open content.

The economic engine of this model, the APC, is both its greatest strength and its most significant controversy. On one hand, it provides a clear, scalable business model that attracts major commercial publishers, allowing them to flip subscription journals or launch new OA titles. 

On the other hand, APCs often run into the thousands of dollars—sometimes well over $5,000 for a top-tier journal—creating a significant financial barrier to publishing for researchers without substantial grant funding or institutional support, particularly those in the Global South. This risk of creating a paywall for authors instead of readers fundamentally undermines the equity goals of open access.

The Self-Archiving Route: Green Open Access

Green Open Access offers a completely different, author-driven pathway to openness. Instead of publishing in an OA journal, the author publishes their work in a traditional subscription journal but then self-archives a version of the manuscript in an institutional repository (like a university’s digital library) or a subject-specific repository (like arXiv for physics or PubMed Central for biomedical literature). This is often referred to as “self-archiving.”

The main draw of Green OA is that it’s usually free for the author, bypassing the problematic APCs altogether. It allows researchers to publish in their preferred journal, regardless of its OA status, while still making their work freely available. This model has been critical for the compliance of many universities and funding bodies, which often mandate that research resulting from their grants must be made open. 

The version that is archived is typically the accepted manuscript (the peer-reviewed version before the publisher’s final copy-editing and formatting) and is often subject to an embargo period, which can range from six to twenty-four months, set by the publisher.

This waiting period, namely the delayed access, is the principal drawback of the Green route. Research is not immediately open, which slows down the speed of discovery and public benefit. Furthermore, the variability in publisher policies regarding which version can be archived and the length of the embargo period can be a bureaucratic nightmare for authors. 

The prevalence of Green OA, while significant in terms of policy and compliance, is not growing as rapidly as Gold OA; industry data suggests its share has remained relatively modest and even receded slightly in recent years compared to Gold’s explosive growth. Nevertheless, for authors lacking grant funds for APCs, or for those in humanities and social sciences where APC-funded OA is less common, Green OA remains the most practical and accessible method for achieving broad dissemination.

The Equitable Ideal: Diamond Open Access

If Gold OA is the commercially viable route and Green OA is the compliance-driven route, then Diamond Open Access is the truly idealistic, community-driven path. Diamond OA journals are free for the reader and free for the author, and the process involves neither APCs or subscription fees. The entire publication process is funded by alternative sources.

The funding for Diamond OA often comes from a mixture of non-commercial sources: academic institutions, research societies, government agencies, and library consortia. These journals are typically run by academics, libraries, or small, non-profit organizations, deeply embedded within the scholarly community they serve. The raison d’être of Diamond OA is pure equity: it removes both the paywall for readers and the financial barrier for authors, making it the most truly open model. 

The challenge for Diamond OA is sustainability and scale. These journals often rely on volunteer effort, in-kind contributions from universities (like server hosting or administrative support), and patchwork funding that can be precarious. They frequently lack the sophisticated, well-funded publishing infrastructure, professional marketing, and long-term financial security enjoyed by their commercial Gold OA counterparts. 

While they represent the ethical and equitable ideal of open access, their future depends on the sustained commitment of global academic and governmental institutions to fund their operations as essential scholarly infrastructure, rather than expecting them to operate on a shoestring budget of goodwill.

The Problem Child: Hybrid Open Access

Hybrid Open Access is, in many ways, the most contentious model in the OA world, and many major funders and consortia view it with extreme skepticism. A hybrid journal is a traditional, subscription-based journal that offers authors the option to pay an APC to make their individual article open access. The rest of the journal’s content remains behind the paywall.

The primary criticism of the Hybrid model is the risk of “double dipping.” This occurs when a publisher charges libraries an annual subscription fee to access the whole journal and simultaneously charges authors (or their funders) an APC to make individual articles open within that same journal. 

Essentially, the publisher is getting paid twice for the same content or access rights. While many large commercial publishers claim to have mechanisms in place to avoid true double-dipping—such as reducing subscription prices in line with APC revenue—the practice remains a source of massive friction.

Furthermore, the APCs in hybrid journals are often higher than in pure Gold OA journals. For proponents of the ethical transition to open access, the Hybrid model is viewed as a transitional measure, or worse, a mechanism for large commercial publishers to maintain their subscription revenue while cashing in on the new APC market. 

The rise of “Transformative Agreements” (like ‘Read and Publish’ deals) is an attempt to manage the hybrid transition by having institutions pay a single fee that covers both subscription access and the APCs for their affiliated authors. These agreements have been a critical factor in the global shift, but they essentially channel vast sums of money through the same commercial entities, sparking debate about whether they truly serve the long-term goal of open, equitable scholarly communication.

Defining “Best” Through a Multifaceted Lens

So, which model is the “best”? The answer, like a good multi-variable equation, depends entirely on the metric you prioritize. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the ideal model shifts depending on the discipline, the region, and the author’s funding situation.

Best for Equity and Idealism: Diamond OA

If the definition of “best” is maximum equity and removal of all financial barriers, Diamond Open Access wins hands down. It ensures that neither the reader nor the author faces a cost barrier, making it the most philosophically aligned with the original spirit of the open access movement. 

The main challenge of Diamond OA is sustainability at scale; relying on voluntary labor and institutional goodwill is not a stable long-term model for the entire global research output. For this model to be truly “best,” institutions and governments must step up to fund it robustly as an essential public good.

Best for Immediate Impact and Commercial Viability: Gold OA (APC)

If immediate access to the publication and a scalable commercial model are what you’re looking for, then Gold Open Access is the current champion. Its rapid growth and clear legal framework (Creative Commons licenses) make it highly attractive for authors with funding and for publishers needing a reliable revenue stream. 

However, its high APCs make it the “worst” model for equity, potentially concentrating publishing power in the hands of wealthy institutions and high-grant-earning researchers. This disparity means the ‘best’ for dissemination can become the ‘worst’ for global inclusivity.

Best for Accessibility and Compliance: Green OA

Green Open Access is the pragmatic choice when it comes to universal accessibility for all authors and compliance with institutional mandates without direct author cost. It ensures an article will eventually be free, even if after an embargo. The drawback, of course, is the lack of immediacy and the risk of the archived version not being the professional final copy. It’s a solid, reliable fallback, but not the ideal model for accelerating discovery.

The Next Generation of Open Access: Transformative Agreements and Infrastructure

The discussion over which model is “best” is increasingly being overshadowed by the mechanisms used to fund the transition itself. The rise of Transformative Agreements (TAs), mentioned earlier in the context of Hybrid OA, represents a massive market shift. 

Instead of paying subscriptions and separate APCs, libraries and consortia negotiate deals with large publishers to pay a lump sum that covers reading access and a set number of publishing slots (APCs) for their affiliated authors. 

These TAs are, on one hand, a huge accelerant for OA, shifting vast subscription funds into the OA bucket. On the other hand, critics argue they simply lock in the existing subscription budgets and publisher dominance, cementing the APC model and making it harder for truly open, non-commercial models like Diamond OA to compete for funding. 

The debate is no longer just about the color of the OA model but about the underlying infrastructure and funding mechanisms that support it. Investments in community-owned publishing platforms, institutional repositories, and non-profit infrastructure (often aligned with Diamond OA) are essential counters to the commercial dominance of the Gold-APC path.

Conclusion

The pursuit of the “best” open access model is fundamentally a search for the most sustainable, equitable, and quality-driven way to share human knowledge. There’s no single silver bullet. Gold OA (APC-based) is currently the most dominant and scalable, offering the promise of immediate access, but it raises serious equity concerns due to high costs. 

Green OA remains the most accessible and pragmatic compliance solution for authors globally but sacrifices immediacy. Diamond OA stands as the ethical ideal, removing all financial barriers, but it requires substantial, sustained public funding to achieve true scale and professionalization.

Ultimately, a plurality of models is likely the “best” path for the global scholarly ecosystem. We need robust, publicly funded Diamond and Green infrastructure to ensure global participation and equity, alongside a more competitive, transparent, and ethically priced Gold OA market. The ongoing conversation must shift from merely comparing the ‘colors’ to actively supporting the development of models and infrastructure that prioritize the public good over publisher profit. 

The true measure of the “best” model will be its ability to make the entirety of the world’s research available to everyone who needs it, regardless of their institutional wealth or geographic location. The industry isn’t just changing; it’s being redefined, and it’s about time we made sure that definition includes fairness for all.

Leave a comment