Publishing in open access journals

Access to scientific publishing has traditionally been based on subscription-based journal models. The growing use of the internet led to instant access to some scientific manuscripts, with the immediate availability of a huge number of scientific papers in special situations (i.e., individual or institutional subscribers). Open access (OA) introduces a novel approach to publication, offering unrestricted, free availability of research papers, combined with the rights to use them with adequate recognition and without any need for specific journal subscriptions. There are five main types of open access journals, based on different levels of accessibility.