Some journals are completely open access and others are hybrid - both open access and with papers that are paywalled (where the author agress to sign over copyright). Publishers generally require article processing charges (APCs) and these can be many thousands of dollars.
Because there are charges, predatory publishers may be lurking. In October 2019 Cabells Scholarly Analytics noted they had 11,000 journal titles on their whitelist and 12,000 on their blacklist. Open access articles are typically published with Creative Commons licences. Consider choosing a licence that prohibits adaptation or commercial use of your work, or any other elements you may not want to agree to.
SMHS staff may have access to the Open Access Publication Fund - check the criteria with the application form. See links below:
Predatory publishers exploit the open-access model by creating counterfeit journals, where authors pay for publication. Although charging fees is a legitimate business practice, it's crucial for publishers to provide quality publishing services in return. These dishonest publishers lack transparency and aim to deceive researchers, particularly those who are inexperienced in scholarly communication.
The Think. Check. Submit. website is designed to guide journal authors and prospective journal authors in the selection of reputable publishers and journals and offers researchers an array of resources aimed at promoting integrity, trust, and education in research and publications. Watch the step-by-step guide in a short video on selecting a reliable publisher for your work submission.
Publishers levy article processing charges (APCs) to make articles freely available to read (open access). Some libraries have negotiated transformative subscription agreements with publishers that cover APCs in their licences. They are also described as read and publish agrements or open access publishing agreements. University and other large libraries in Australia have negotiated these nationally via CAUL - The Council of Australian University Libraries.
EMHS / SMHS Library has an agreement with Cambridge University Press and with BMJ Case Reports that covers the APC.
More agreements are pursued at renewal time. However, publishers have indicated that they prefer whole of WA Health deals rather than library by library.
SMHS staff who have publications arising from research that is registered in RGS (the Research Governance System), may make application to cover an APC via an Open Access Publishing grant - see links below:
Staff who hold joint affiliations with universities may have access to university library read and publish agreements. Joint affiliation status should be recorded wherever possible (i.e. with the health service as well as with the university). WA Universities with such agreements are:
The SMHS & EMHS Library has a read and publish agreement in place with Cambridge University Press (no APCs – Article Processing Charges). Look for the titles this applies to in the full list of Cambridge journals from the link below – all journals listed have been filtered in the search results with Access:Full.
BMJ Case Reports
Consider submitting to BMJ Case Reports - the Library has an institutional fellowship you can use. Check if the journal you are considering submitting your paper to for publication is indexed in major indexes such as Medline, Embase, PsycInfo etc. Papers in journals that are indexed have a better chance of being discovered and having impact.
Author organisational affiliation
Authors need to indicate an affiliation with either SMHS or EMHS and any of the associated hospitals. We’ve also registered RORs (Research Organization Registry) entries for SMHS and EMHS. (RORs are identifiers like ORCIDs for authors and DOIs for articles / chapters). The publisher uses these to understand coverage of affiliations with subscriptions.