Managing gold open access
Providing guidance on the Cochrane Library editorial policy on open access and article sharing.
July 2024: The information on this page carries over material contained in the EPPR, some of which may be out of date or reproduced elsewhere. It is being reviewed for accuracy and consistency.
Licence types and eligibility
As stated in Cochrane's editorial policy on open access and explained in the open access informational page, authors can choose to pay an article publication charge (APC) to publish a protocol, review, update or editorial as gold open access (open access immediately upon publication). Some author teams will be eligible for an APC waiver.
Three types of gold open access licence for publication forms are available to authors:
- CC BY (attribution) – At Cochrane, this option is available only to authors with a funder mandate to use the CC BY licence
- CC BY-NC (attribution and non-commercial use)
- CC BY-NC-ND (attribution, non-commercial use, and no derivatives)
Initiating gold open access
Authors are made aware in the editorial policy on open access that they should contact the managing editor to discuss gold open access early in the process, before signing the licence for publication form. Managing Editors will need to liaise with David Hives (dhives@wiley.com; Cochrane Production Manager, Wiley) and use the template emails stored in Editorial Manager for communication with authors in the scenarios described here.
Scenario 1: Payment of article publication charge (APC)
- Author team wants to pay the APC for gold open access.
- Contact author alerts Managing Editor.
- Managing Editor sends template email from Editorial Manager that explains open access licence for publication form options and payment information to author; author team and David Hives (dhives@wiley.com; Cochrane Production Manager, Wiley) are copied in to template. [See template email for scenario 1 below to explain the process, costs and mandated roles.] (See also Licence for Publication forms: group sites.)
- Author lets Managing Editor know which open access licence for publication form the team would like or is mandated to use.
- Managing Editor selects agreed gold open access licence for publication form on manuscript details. (For further information, see Licence for Publication forms: group sites.)
- Template email from Editorial Manager copies in David Hives (dhives@wiley.com; Cochrane Production Manager, Wiley) to say open access has been selected. David Hives will manage the payment process from this point onwards.
- Cochrane review published with open access logo, and relevant copyright and legal information.
Scenario 2: Waiver of article publication charge (APC)
- Author team is eligible for gold open access waiver because first author is from a Research4Life Group A or B country, provided that funding for the Cochrane Library article does not include funds for the article publication charge.
- Contact author alerts Managing Editor.
- Managing Editor checks eligibility against Research4Life list.
- Managing Editor sends template email from Editorial Manager to confirm if author is eligible (or not) and sends a link to webpage that explains the two OA LfPs that the author can select (CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-ND). Author team and David Hives (dhives@wiley.com; Cochrane Production Manager, Wiley) are copied in to template. [See template email for scenario 2 below to explain the process.] (See also Licence for Publication forms: group sites.)
- Contact author lets Managing Editor know which open access license for publication form the team would like to select.
- Managing Editor selects agreed gold open access licence for publication form on manuscript details. (For further information, see Licence for Publication forms: group sites.)
- Template email from Editorial Manager copies in David Hives (dhives@wiley.com; Cochrane Production Manager, Wiley) to say open access has been selected and is eligible for a waiver (i.e. no payment required).
- Review published with open access logo, and relevant copyright and legal information.