Gold open access is a way of publishing in open peer-reviewed journals. Access to full texts is provided by the publisher, not the author. 

To publish via gold open access, following steps need to be taken.

Step 1: Find a suitable open access journal to publish in

Currently, there are thousands of open access journals in various fields and areas. But apart from the specialization, these magazines also differ in their chosen business model. There are three basic models of open access journals: 

• Pure/diamond open access journals – Full content of the journal is openly accessible while publishing-related costs are borne by the publisher (e.g. a university publishing house, scientific community). Example: Global Health Research and Policy or European Commission’s publishing platform Open Research Europe

• Paid open access journals – Full content of the journal is openly available while publishing costs of the article are borne by the authors – they pay a publication fee; this type of journals is often mistaken for the entire gold open access model. Example: PLoS ONE or Occupational Therapy International 

• Hybrid journals – The journal is available to subscribers by default, only selected articles are available in open access for a publication fee. Example: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 

Journals of which content is available free of charge after the expiration of the embargo are not considered to be open access – they do not meet the condition of immediate access. 

You can use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) database to find a suitable open journal to publish your article or to search for relevant literature. 

For new / unknown titles, we strongly advise you to check whether it is a predatory journal. 

Step 2: Make sure you have the opportunity to get funds for the publication fee

Publication fees/article processing charges (APC) are associated with a paid open access journal model and hybrid journals. The fee varies from title to title; field differences are also significant. 

APCs can be covered from a grant or a research project budget (costs of open publishing for the duration of the grant are eligible for example in H2020, ERC, Czech Ministery of Education etc.), or from workplace resources (if funds have been set aside for this purpose). 

Corresponding authors of the UK can also use discounts or tokens for open access publishing with selected publishers. More information here.

Step 3: Publish an article to a selected publisher

If you have chosen a suitable open access journal (having verified its quality and in the case of a paid model you have the resources to cover the publication fees), submit a preprint of your article to the editor. 

Once the article is peer reviewed and published, the author no longer has to worry about ensuring open access. In the case of gold open access, the publisher provides it directly on their site. 

To ensure that your article is fully open, we recommend publishing it under a public license. The most common public licenses used not only for scientific articles are internationally known Creative Commons (CC) licenses.