Bristol Community College Library Learning Commons: Open Access: Types (Colors) of Open Access

Gold vs. Green

	Gold Open Access	Green Open Access
Access	Final published version is permanently and freely available online for anyone to read	An earlier version of a manuscript is posted in a repository or personal website
Embargo Period	Not usually required	Usually required unless stated otherwise
Fees	Article Publishing Charge (APC) paid by author or institution	No APC required
Copyright	Author retains copyright with a Creative Commons license of choice	Publisher or journal retains copyright, restrictions of use
Licensing	Can publish with a license that has few or no restrictions on how people can reuse the work (with credit)	Varies by publisher

Gold

Gold Open Access

Articles are fully accessible immediately upon publication with no restrictions

The publishing cost is paid for by an "Article Processing Charge" (APC) that comes from the author, their institution, or a membership

Green

Green Open Access

Also called "self-archiving"

The author publishes in a traditional journal, but also shares their work (sometimes a preprint or post-print) through an open access repository OR their personal website

Repositories are typically within their institution or discipline

Sometimes have an "embargo period" (time where the article has to be only available through the journal before being published in OA)

Publisher retains copyright

Other Types of Open Access

Hybrid Open Access

Subscription-based journal allows author to pay an APC to have their article also be freely available online (also called double dipping b/c publisher gets payment from subscription and author)

Diamond Open Access

Same as gold access but with no APC

Bronze Open Access

Freely available but does not have a clearly identifiable license

Usually can't be reused by other authors

Publisher can retract open access at any time