Alternative publishing options

These journals allow anyone to access articles for free, and many do not charge author fees. To find a journal that might suit your publishing needs, search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This is a comprehensive directory of high-quality open access journals. 

You can narrow your search to journals that do not charge Article Processing Charges (APCs). You can also filter by broad subject areas, those that publish in certain languages, the place of publication, and the type of peer review undertaken. 

Of relevance to the social sciences and humanities, the Open Libraries of Humanities offers a portfolio of 32 open access journals, such as Free & Equal: A Journal of Ethics and Public Affairs and Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.  

Around 10% of journals indexed in DOAJ have been awarded the DOAJ Seal—they demonstrate best practice in open access publishing.   

OLH journals do not charge publishing fees, although authors can make a £450 voluntary contribution if they have access to funds. 

These are large online journals covering broad subject areas. Publishing practices vary, but often peer review is based on soundness rather than interest, novelty or importance and acceptance rates are therefore high. They can be good for negative or null results that can struggle to get published elsewhere. They usually charge APCs, but these are generally lower than regular journals.  

Mega journals are more common in the sciences, but there are some that cater for the social sciences and humanities: 

• Open Library of Humanities: in addition to their portfolio of journals, they run an interdisciplinary, diamond open access mega journal. It concentrates on publishing special collections that are guest-edited. No publication fees are charged. 

• F1000Research (owned by Taylor and Francis) features rapid publication and transparent, post-publication peer review. As long as submissions adhere to their ethical and editorial policies they will be accepted. The APC ranges from £700–£1,200 depending on article type. 

• Sage Open evaluates the scientific and research methods of each article for validity and accepts articles solely on the basis of the research. Offers rapid publication of research in social and behavioural sciences and the humanities. The APC is approximately £1,200. 

• De Gruyter Open is a suite of journals that offer rapid publication. They are peer reviewed, and some operate transparent peer review. They include Open Theology, Economics, Open Philosophy and Open Agriculture. APCs are between £400 and £800. 

• Social Sciences & Humanities Open (Elsevier): this journal encourages multi and inter-disciplinary work as well as new and experimental forms of research, replication studies and negative findings. All submissions will be evaluated based on their scientific and methodological validity and robustness of research. The APC is approximately £800.  

Data journals publish datasets and papers focusing on data management issues such as data creation, context, access, and software use. They provide recognition for data collectors through peer reviewed papers that can be cited like traditional articles.  

They enhance the visibility of datasets and link them for easier access. Data papers typically follow dataset deposits in repositories and can positively impact the metrics of related research articles. 

Data journals promote data dissemination and offer credit to authors, addressing the challenge of recognition for data contributions. They are more common in the sciences, but there is one that caters for the arts, humanities and social sciences: The Journal of Open Humanities Data (APC is £500) was established in 2015 to address the rise of data-driven research in the humanities and social sciences.  

Open publishing platforms provide an alternative model of open access publication to the traditional journal article and often focus on the various stages of the research process, rather than the final output. 

Funder platforms

Funder platforms offer an opportunity for funded researchers to provide rapid access to their research that complies with Open Access requirements. All types of research are included, such as data and case studies, and they can include null and negative results. They conduct rapid pre-publication checks, but full peer review takes place after publication and is transparent. Publishing costs are covered by the funder. Examples include: 

• Wellcome Open Research (Wellcome Trust) 

• Open Research Europe (EU)  

• Gates Open Research (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) 

Micropublications

There have been some recently developed platforms for micropublications. These encourage step-by-step publishing in small units as research progresses. They aim to improve the efficiency and transparency of research. 

Each element could be carried out by different people at different times and can be published individually, without needing to fit the format of a traditional journal article. It enables publication of research steps early in the research process. 

You can also publish any work you have previously published in a journal if you retain the copyright or published CC BY. This can help to increase your research visibility. 

Octopus

Octopus is a multi-disciplinary research publishing platform that breaks down research into smaller, interconnected elements. It does not charge publication fees. 

Octopus aims to complement traditional journal publishing, so publishing in Octopus doesn't prevent a researcher from publishing in a journal later. 

The eight publication types in Octopus are: Research problem, Rationale/hypothesis, Method, Results, Analysis, Interpretation, Real world application. The final type is Peer review, and this is a transparent, post-publication review of an existing Octopus publication. 

Octopus is funded by UKRI, but any researcher can use it to make their research openly available. 

ResearchEquals

ResearchEquals is a similar model of incremental publishing and has an innovative funding structure of ‘pay to close’ where authors can publish for free with a CC BY licence, but pay to publish with a more restrictive licence. Researchers can publish each step of the research journey, and trace, link and see the connections between these steps.

Many scholars write for blogs or websites dedicated to specific fields, such as The Conversation and Medium. 

Blogs are a quick and simple way to publish content on the web and can be a handy way of promoting your research and increasing your research profile. Blogs offer a more informal and personal platform for writing about your research and introduce your work to a wider audience. 

A preprint is a version of a paper shared on a public server before peer review and publication in journal. Preprints allow research to be shared quickly and encourage feedback. They also help to establish authorship and enable work to be cited as soon as possible. 

Publishing preprints should not affect later publication in peer reviewed journals although it is worth checking journal policies to see whether they will accept submissions that have been published as preprints.   

Many funders (e.g. Wellcome Trust) encourage researchers to share preprints and cite them in grant applications and reports.   

Preprint servers do not generally charge publication fees. Examples of preprint servers for the social sciences include:  

• SocArXiv (Social Sciences)  

• PsyArXiv (Psychology)  

• RePEc (Economics)   

• SSRN (Social Sciences) 

Institutional repositories

Many universities have repositories where academics can upload their work, making it accessible to the public. These repositories include work that would not always be formally published, such as conference presentations. 

Repositories allow you to archive accepted manuscripts in compliance with REF or funder policies and are particularly useful to academics who lack funds for publication costs.  

SOAS’s repository is called SOAS Research Online; you can find further information about it on our dedicated webpage. 

Subject repositories

Subject repositories can also be used for the same purpose as institutional repositories but are often required to be not-for-profit. OAD provides a list of subject repositories.

These platforms host datasets and other outputs. Publishing datasets alongside research increases transparency and allows others to replicate studies.  

They are usually free to use, but some may impose charges on particularly large datasets. 

Most repositories allow embargoes on datasets or mediated access if the data is sensitive. Examples of data repositories include: 

• Zenodo: supports all disciplines; also allows for dataset and software publication. 

• Figshare: for sharing research outputs such as papers, datasets, and presentations. 

• UK Data Archive Reshare: where researchers can archive, publish and share research data, as open or safeguarded data.