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Open Access
Myths, Facts, Actions
By Christine Fruin, ATLA

ABSTR ACT There are several pervasive myths around open access 
as a means of producing and disseminating scholarship. Some of these 
myths concern perceived low quality, expense for authors, and modes 
of dissemination. During this Listen and Learn session, several myths 
about open access were presented alongside facts dispelling those 
myths and proposed actions librarians and others can take to maximize 
the reach and impact of scholarship through open access.

MYTH  Academic research has impact and value only if published in tradi-
tional, subscription journals.

FACT More than 76% of electronic scholarly documents are not 
freely available to the public. Further, as many as 50% of papers are 
never read by anyone other than their authors, referees and journal 
editors.1 This is largely attributable to the traditional practice of lock-
ing academic research behind expensive paywalls created by for-
profit publishers. Open access makes scholarly research available to 
anyone with an internet connection and thereby it is more discover-
able by researchers, students, policy makers, and journalists, which 
can greatly enhance impact and reach. Open access also promotes 
retention of rights by authors and encourages the reuse and sharing 
of research. 

ACT Use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to search for 
and identify open access journals in numerous subject areas, includ-
ing theology and religion.2 Journals listed in the DOAJ have been 
vetted for quality through a rigorous application process whereby 
journals must provide information on their editorial boards, publish-
ing policies, and licensing.



290  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

MYTH Open access journals are low quality and not peer reviewed.

FACT All journals, whether traditional subscription-based journals or 
open access journals, should be evaluated for quality before a manu-
script is submitted for review and publication. Most open access jour-
nals have rigorous editorial policies for peer review and selection. 
Many open access journals are affiliated with academic institutions, 
such as the Journal of Religion & Society published by the Kripke Center 
at Creighton University, and have rigorous editorial policies for peer 
review and selection.

ACT Utilize the resource “Think.Check.Submit.” to evaluate publica-
tion venues, regardless of open access status.3 This resource provides 
a simple checklist that potential authors can use to assess the creden-
tials of a journal or publisher. Additionally, the Open Access Scholarly 
Publishers Association maintains “Principles of Transparency and 
Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing,” which further outlines journal 
policies and practices that authors should evaluate prior to submit-
ting their works to any journal.4

MYTH  Open access journals do not have impact factors and therefore are 
irrelevant.

FACT The more accessible that a work is to other researchers, the 
greater chance it will be discovered, read, and cited by peers, thereby 
increasing the impact that a piece of scholarly research has. Numer-
ous researchers have investigated the increased impact of open 
access research.5 Further, the term “impact factor” is a proprietary 
term that applies only to journals indexed in the Web of Science 
databases managed by Thomson Reuters, now Clarivate. Not all 
scholarly journals are indexed in Web of Science; therefore, it is an 
incomplete measure of impact. Finally, alternative metrics, also 
known as altmetrics, measure impact through analysis of online 
interactions with an individual piece of scholarship. Altmetrics look 
at data such as how many times an article is downloaded or book-
marked and how often it is shared and discussed in the news or in 
social media outlets. Altmetrics complement traditional metrics to 
provide a more complete picture of the impact of a piece of scholar-
ship within a body of research or upon a community of researchers 
or other interested persons.



Listen and Learn Sessions  291

ACT Learn more about altmetrics6 and consider creating a profile on 
ImpactStory.org to calculate the impact your research has beyond the 
impact factor. Further, anyone may freely download Harzing’s Publish 
or Perish software to retrieve and analyze academic citations.7 Finally, 
the recently released Metrics Toolkit provides information and usage 
guides for the many available research metrics across disciplines.8

MYTH  Open access publications will not be respected by peers and thus not 
satisfy requirements of promotion and tenure.

FACT If an open access journal has editorial policies that require 
rigorous peer review and reject manuscripts for research miscon-
duct, the publication should satisfy the requirements of promotion 
and tenure. Librarians and faculty should advocate for revision of 
promotion and tenure guidelines to allow publication in open access 
journals or other forms of scholarship to be weighed similarly, if not 
equally, to traditionally published scholarship. Through education 
on open access and dispelling these myths, librarians contribute to 
the cultural change that needs to occur in academia with respect to 
evaluation of scholarly contributions.

ACT To demonstrate that open access scholarship is impactful and 
high quality, conduct a search on Google Scholar for an open access 
journal of interest and note the citation reach of articles published 
therein. Further, scan the names of authors publishing in that journal 
and make note of their employing institutions and whether they are 
peers for your home institution. 

MYTH Open access means only publishing in open access journals.

FACT Open access can be accomplished in two ways: (1) by publish-
ing in an open access journal or (2) by publishing in any journal and 
retaining the right in the publisher agreement to make a version of 
your work available in an open access repository.

ACT Authors should research publication venues prior to submitting 
their manuscripts, not only for determinations of a journal’s quality 
but also to review its policies as to copyright and archiving. SHERPA/
RoMEO collects and reports on the archiving and deposit policies of 
most journals.9 Authors also should deposit their article or a version 
of it as permitted by the author agreement they sign with the journal 



292  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

in an open access repository, whether hosted by their own institu-
tion or maintained by another organization to collect and showcase 
scholarship on a particular subject. OpenDOAR maintains a listing of 
open access repositories. Users can search for repositories by subject 
or geographic region.10

MYTH  Open access deprives authors of their copyright and allows for reuse 
of a work without proper attribution.

FACT Open access actively promotes the retention of copyright by 
authors as opposed to the traditional transfer of control to publish-
ers. Most open access publishers utilize Creative Commons™ licens-
ing, which requires full attribution of the author but allows authors 
to customize how their work may be reused and shared by others. 

ACT Read publisher agreements carefully and negotiate or amend 
them to allow retention of rights. Consider using an author’s agree-
ment amendment, such as the one prepared by SPARC.11

MYTH Open access is only for STEM disciplines.

FACT Open access is becoming a part of everyone’s world and is 
the next wave of scholarly dissemination, regardless of the disci-
pline.  Funding agencies and organizations, including NEH, NEA, and 
Mellon Foundation, are adopting public access policies that require 
deposit of publications that are the product of funded research in 
specific open access repositories.

ACT Learn more about public funding agencies mandating 
open access at https://sparcopen.org/our-work/2013-executive-
directive/#plans. 

MYTH Open access publishing is expensive for authors.

FACT Not all open access journals charge article processing charges 
or APCs. Subscriptions are the traditional means of covering overhead 
costs, but most publishers are collecting these at a profit level that is 
not sustainable and at the cost of restricting research to only those 
who can afford to pay. Open access journals make all research free 
to read while covering overhead costs through nonprofit or funder 
backing. Some open access journals utilize APCs as a business model, 

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/2013-executive-directive/#plans
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/2013-executive-directive/#plans


Listen and Learn Sessions  293

but authors can request a fee waiver in certain cases, cover the cost 
of APCs by utilizing institutional funds where available, or cover the 
cost through grants or other funding.

ACT Get the facts about APCs by reviewing the research on the 
frequency and rate of APCs charged by scholarly journals.12 Further, 
faculty and others can investigate whether their employing academic 
institution provides support to cover APCs. SPARC maintains a list 
of colleges and universities that maintain funds, as well as other 
resources on campus-based funds.13

NOTES

1 Madian Khabasa and C. Lee Giles, “The Number of Scholarly 
Documents on the Public Web,” PLOS ONE 9, no. 5 (May 2014): 
e93949. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093949.

2 Directory of Open Access Journals, accessed August 9, 2018, 
http://www.doaj.org.

3 Think.Check.Submit., Accessed August 9, 2018, https://think-
checksubmit.org/.

4 “Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly 
Publishing,” Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, 
accessed August 9, 2018, https://oaspa.org/principles-of-trans-
parency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/.

5 “The effect of open access and downloads (‘hits’) on cita-
tion impact: a bibliography of studies,” Open Citation Project, 
accessed August 9, 2018, http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-
biblio.html.

6 “Altmetrics: A Manifesto,” Altmetrics, accessed August 9, 2018, 
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/.

7 “Publish or Perish,” Harzing, accessed August 9, 2018, https://
harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish.

8 Metrics Toolkit, accessed August 9, 2018, http://www.metrics-
toolkit.org/.

9 “Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving,” SHERPA/RoMEO, 
accessed August 9, 2018, http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.
php.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093949
http://www.doaj.org
https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
https://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/
https://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing/
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/
https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish
https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish
http://www.metrics-toolkit.org/
http://www.metrics-toolkit.org/
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php


294  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

10 “Directory of Open Access Repositories,” OpenDOAR, accessed 
August 9, 2018, http://v2.opendoar.sherpa.ac.uk/search.html.

11 “Author Rights: Using the SPARC Author Addendum,” SPARC, 
accessed August 9, 2018, https://sparcopen.org/our-work/
author-rights/brochure-html/.

12 David Solomon and Bo-Christer Björk, “Article processing 
charges for open access publication—the situation for research 
intensive universities in the USA and Canada,” PeerJ 4 (July 
2016): e2664. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2264. 

13 “Campus Open Access Funds,” SPARC, accessed August 9, 2018, 
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/oa-funds/.

http://v2.opendoar.sherpa.ac.uk/search.html
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/author-rights/brochure-html/
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/author-rights/brochure-html/
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2264
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/oa-funds/

