Open Access

Open access status is provided across the Web of Science platform as a result of a partnership with OurResearch, a not-for-profit organization that recently launched a knowledge base of Open Access (OA) content. This knowledge base makes it possible to discover and link to legal Gold or Bronze (free content at a publisher's website) and Green (e.g., author self-archived in a repository) OA versions. This partnership improves discoverability and access to article-level OA versions not only by adding more links to OA content, but also by prioritizing the links to the best version of OA content when multiple versions of an article are available. You can learn more about OA on the Clarivate website.

Always consult the copyright owner for any re-use or licensing requests.

Descriptions of Open Access Types

The following table outlines descriptions of each access type.

Open Access Type Descriptions

Gold

Gold

  • Identified as having a Creative Commons (CC) license by OurResearch Unpaywall Database.

  • All articles in these journals must have a license in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative to be called Gold.

Hybrid
  • Items identified as having a Creative Commons (CC) license by OurResearch but that are not in journals where all content is Gold.
  • Hybrid Gold open access status is at varying levels of completeness, especially for newly published articles.
Free to Read

The licensing for these articles is either unclear or identified by OurResearch as non-CC license articles. These are free-to-read or public access articles located on a publisher’s site. 

A publisher may, as a promotion, grant free access to an article for a limited time. At the end of the promotional period, access to the article may require a fee which can lead to temporary errors in our data. You may find content that is incomplete, especially new content.

Green

Published

  • Final published versions of articles hosted on an institutional or subject-based repository (e.g., an article out of its embargo period posted to PubMed Central).

Accepted
  • Accepted manuscripts hosted on a repository.
  • Content is peer reviewed and final, but may not have been through the publisher’s copy-editing or typesetting.

Submitted

  • Original manuscripts submitted for publication, but that have not been through a peer review process.

Linking to OA versions

On a Results Summary Page, there is only a link to the best available free copy of an OA article. If there is more than one free version available, links to other versions will only appear in the Full Text Options Menu on the Full Record page for an article. When available, the final version of record at the publisher website is always preferred, followed by the final published version at a repository, then the accepted version, and submitted version. Links are always labeled with the version and whether they point to a publisher website or a repository.

Exporting the OA status

The follow OA values are available as part of the export of the full record:

  • Gold
  • Gold Hybrid
  • Free to Read
  • Green Published
  • Green Accepted
  • Green Submitted

Refining Results for Open Access

The Web of Science Refine Results panel offers two methods to filter a set of search results to show only Open Access content:

  1. Using the Open Access filter in the primary Filter Results by panel near the top-left of the Search Results Summary page limits search results to all items identified as Open Access of any type.
  2. The Refine Results panel on the left allows users to refine by open access type:
    • Gold
    • Gold Hybrid
    • Free to Read
    • Green Published
    • Green Accepted
    • Green Submitted