The green route isself-archiving or deposit by the author in an open archive, such as arXiv or HAL.
Since the Law for a Digital Republic of 2016, an author in France has the right to deposit the accepted version of his or her manuscript (the version with the revisions incorporated following the review process by a reading committee).
Scientific papers can be submitted to a platform at any stage in the author's writing process. On the other hand, web publication of the final version of an author's manuscript accepted for publication may be subject to a delay if requested by the publisher. In this case, it is possible to indicate a deferred release date on HAL or other open archives.
This period is a maximum of :
● 6 months for a publication in the field of science, technology and medicine (STM);
● 12 months in the humanities and social sciences (SHS).
The deadline runs from the date of first online publication by the publisher, and not from the date of publication of the issue of the magazine, which may be later.
If authorized by the publisher, distribution may take place immediately or within a shorter timeframe.
The deposit improves the researcher's visibility and the citation of work, while guaranteeing authorship. It is possible to apply a Creative Commons license to specify, for example, that all commercial reuse is forbidden.
Within the golden path, the main economic model that stands out is the author-pays model: access to the document is free for the reader, but the author or his institution pays a fee called Article processing charges (APC ) to finance the publication.
However, the author must be careful
- Faced with possible pricing and editorial abuses (lack of scientific committee and/or peer review process) by certain publishers
- Faced with hybrid journals: The Open Science Committee formally advises researchers and institutions against paying additional fees in a subscription-based journal and asks not to support this double-dipping model.
It enables scientists to publish in open access, free of charge, while retaining their copyright. Journals and platforms are funded upstream by a donor, a university, a non-profit organization, or generate their revenues through the freemium (free basic service and additional paid services : PDF, ePub etc.).