Alternative publishing models

Technology allows for many publishing alternatives to traditional print journals and books. Researchers can publish in open-access journals, have their articles or books peer-reviewed online and even interact with their peer reviewers, and get their research out and available to those who need it faster than ever before. There are many different formats available.

Overview of Open Access Journals

Open access journals are split into a few different categories:

  • Gold open access journals are fully open access with all content freely available to anyone who wishes to access it.
  • Green open access journals have two stages of dissemination; first the material is printed, then it is placed in a digital repository where it can be accessed for free and online.
  • There are other “hybrid” versions of open access that include delayed open access, post-print open access, and additional fees to make an article open access.

Publishing in open access journals has many benefits:

  • Material is disseminated quicker and often to a larger audience
  • Open access journals tend to be cited more as a result
  • The peer review process is usually faster and may be more open, allowing the researcher and reviewers to interact
  • The material is available online and is easily accessed

For more information about open access journals, see the following links:

Directory of Open Access Journals
“Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles,” PLoS Biology, issue 5 (May 2006)

Institutional and disciplinary repositories

Purdue has created its institutional repository, e-Scholar, to house valuable archival documents, research, and data sets for the Purdue community. Many disciplines have also developed repositories for their researchers, known as disciplinary repositories. An institutional repository, however, helps facilitate interdisciplinary research across campus rather than just showing research from within one defined discipline. An institutional repository also has the added benefit of being a central location that is structured, archived, and maintained (as opposed to posting it on a personal webpage).

For listings of repositories, please see the links below:

Registry of Open Access Repositories
Directory of Open Access Repositories

Other alternative publishing methods

There are many examples of other alternative publishing methods, including wikis, blogs, online magazines, and e-journals just to name a few. Here are some links to more information about new publishing models and new processes of peer review.

“Scholarly Communication: Academic Values and Sustainable Models”by C. Judson King, Diane Harley, Sarah Earl-Novell, Jennifer Arter, Shannon Lawrence, and Irene Perciali. Published by the Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley. July 27, 2006.

Nature Peer Review Debate: a selection of solicited essays on peer review issues from a range of perspectives, with open commentary.