The communication of research results is essential for making progress in scientific research and leading to innovations. Many authors of scientific articles want to make their research results freely available to all of those who are interested in their research. Open access (OA) is a way to make the contents of scientific articles available on-line to all interested readers without placing any financial or copyright barriers between the readers and the article. Over the decade, open access has become central to advancing global interest in scientific and scholarly publications.
Open access refers to making the content of publications available to readers without charge and giving the permission of the copyright owner to reuse content. It expands the availability of articles to anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in a specific topic. There are two typical models adopted by scientific journals as outlined below.
This is a model in which the final published version (or version of record, VOR) of an article is made freely available upon payment of the article processing charge (APC) by the author, his/her funding agency or a third party. Copyright can either be licensed or assigned in the standard manner, but the publisher makes the content free to be viewed and reused (subject to some restrictions defined by the publisher) immediately after publication. There are many new open access journals that have begun publication, and also, some other subscription-based journals (including APEX/JJAP) have introduced an open access option (“Open Select” in APEX/JJAP) to make an article freely available upon payment of an extra one-time fee by the author.
Green open access refers to the “self-archiving” of an article in a publicly and freely accessible repository, usually after a delay (embargo) period of up to twelve months. The author's peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript (but before any copy-editing, coding, etc.), not the final published version (or version of record, VOR), can be posted onto the repository. Copyright is generally assigned to the publisher and the author is given the right to post onto a repository within the restrictions defined by the publisher. Many of the subscription-based journals (e.g., APEX/JJAP) allow “self-archiving” by the authors. Some of Institutions and funding bodies request the authors to make their research results Green OA.
Open access enhances the visibility of articles, increases accessibility for readers, and helps the public to reuse the article. Open access (Gold OA) includes the following major benefits.
In most subscription-based, peer-reviewed journals, the copyright for published articles is assigned or transferred from the author to the publisher when the article is accepted for publication in the journal. In this case, the publisher has the right to publish the article in any form or by any means. Reproducing and/or reusing such articles, including posting on any repository open to the public, may be allowed only with the prior permission of the publisher.
In fully open access (Gold OA) journals, on the other hand, the publisher makes the content free to be viewed and reused immediately after publication. Certain conditions on the reuse of the author's work may be imposed via a license. Many of the OA journals are being published under Creative Commons licenses, where the copyright is retained by the author and the reuse of the article by others is allowed within the restrictions defined in the license.
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides free and easy-to-use copyright licenses giving the public the right to share, use, and even build upon an author's creative work. The Creative Commons also protects all the users of an author's work, so they need not worry about copyright infringement as long as they abide by the specified conditions. Licensing OA articles under a Creative Commons license has evolved as the standard for OA publishing. Among several different sets of licenses, one of the most liberal Creative Commons licenses for publishing scientific articles is the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. This license allows authors to retain ownership of the copyright of their work while granting all users permission to share and adapt their work, even for commercial use, as long as the author and the original source of the work are properly attributed.
Whilst OA principles promote free and easy accessibility of research contents for all readers at any time, the production and maintenance of research articles cannot be accomplished without cost. Publishers pay these costs via Article Processing Charges (APCs) because they do not charge subscription fees for the research content. APCs are collected from the author after article acceptance, at the beginning of the publication process.
If a journal charges an APC upon publication, the author is responsible for making or arranging the payment. In many cases in practice, authors' institutions, funding agencies, and societies can cover the APC in different ways, for example, by establishing an OA fund, by including it in their general funding, or by paying it as part of a membership model.
To help authors gain maximum exposure for their novel, important research articles, the JSAP offers an open access option (in Gold OA model) for articles published in APEX and JJAP. This OA program is called Open Select. The authors can make their article freely available upon payment of an extra one-time fee covering the APC. For detailed information of Open Select, please refer to the document “Copyright and Open Access — APEX/JJAP” or visit our journal Web site. Also, all the articles in JJAP Conference Proceedings are published in the open access (Gold OA) model. All Open Select articles as well as all JJAP Conference Proceedings articles are published under the CC-BY license.
Self-archiving of the article is allowed (Green OA) under some restrictions set out by JSAP (e.g., twelve-month embargo period). For the details of the requirements, please refer to the document “Copyright and Open Access — APEX/JJAP” or visit our Web site.
Some Institutions and funding bodies may request the authors to make their research result publicly and freely accessible for all readers. The author can abide by such mandates by self-archiving their works.
This is the copy-edited version of an article published by the publisher. For fully open access articles, this version is allowed to be shared and reused immediately after its publication. The “version of record (VOR)” is also used in the same sense.