Open access (OA) journals are academic, peer-reviewed journals that are free and available for anyone to read without paying subscription fees. To make up for lost subscription revenue, many journals instead charge author fees to researchers who wish to publish in them. These fees can reach thousands of dollars per article, paid out of publicly funded research grants.
This costs Canadians millions of dollars annually, and lines the pockets of major publishers whose profit margins rival those of Pfizer. However, thousands of OA journals don’t charge author fees, proving that publishing in open access journals doesn’t have to be this expensive.
