Open Access is the immediate, free and permanent availability and visibility of research publications on the internet. There are several ways open to you to disseminate your work in Open Access, ranging from free of charge to chargeable. Broadly speaking, there are two routes:

a) Publish directly in Open Access

You publish your work openly accessible right from the start – as a journal article in an Open Access journal or as an Open Access book. This makes your work immediately freely accessible and often allows you to retain full rights to your work.

You should think twice about publishing in a hybrid journal, as this business model is contentious. If a framework agreement such as DEAL exists for the respective journal, however, it can be a good compromise.

b) Self-archive or publish a second time

If you decide against Open Access for the first publication, or want to make a work accessible that you have already published without Open Access, you can make it publicly accessible through self-archiving – for example in an institutional or subject-specific repository. Many publishers will at least allow you to share an earlier version of your work this way.

These two routes are not mutually exclusive – you can combine them to guarantee maximum dissemination of your work while satisfying the regulations on intellectual property.