Using open access does not mean an author is giving up the peer-review process, which is an essential part of scientific communication. Authors who want to publish their results in open access and submit them to the peer-review process have the following at their disposal:
- Gold Open Access: publication in an open access scientific journal using the peer-review process to verify the quality of articles. The best known journals are from the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and BioMed Central publishers. In 2010, the impact factor of the PLoS Medicine journal was 15,617, which ranks it in fifth place in the general medicine category in Journal Citation Reports,
- Hybrid Model: publication in a subscription scientific journal that, after payment, allows authors immediate open access to their articles,
- Green Open Access: publication in a regular (subscription) scientific journal and simultaneous submission of authors’ final peer-reviewed version of the article in an open access repository such as arXiv, PubMed Central (PMC), the Digital Library of the University of Maribor (DKUM), and the OpenAIRE Orphan Record Repository
Beyond open access: visions for open evaluation of scientific papers by post-publication peer review, March 2015