Open Access Publishing

Open access (OA) is the practice of providing unrestricted access to peer-reviewed research journal articles via the internet. This is done for a variety of reasons and is particularly good for the dissemination of new knowledge. Evidence shows that this practice increases article citations

The then Vice Chancellor, Professor Loyiso Nongxa, signed the Berlin Declaration on 9 November 2012, and thereby committed the university ¡°to address the challenges of the Internet as an emerging functional medium for distributing knowledge.¡± Read more 

There are two ways in which OA publication can be practiced.

• Green OA Self-Archiving

In this mode authors publish in their selected journals and then self-archive a version of the article for free public use in the institutional repository. It is necessary to send the author¡¯s addendum with the original manuscript to the publishing journal so as to secure permission to self-archive without contravening copy right law. 

The Wits repository is called the Wits Institutional Repository on DSpace or WIReDSpace for short.

• Gold OA Publishing

Authors publish in an open access journal that provides immediate OA to all of its articles on the publisher's website.

Read the Open Access Information Sheet.

Predatory Publishers

Although the use of OA publishers is encouraged for scholarly reasons beware of so called predatory publishers. Using their services will not only be harmful to your academic reputation, but will also cost you money. You should avoid them at all costs. You can read more about these harmful practices here.

The question is how to avoid  such unscrupulous publishers? Watch the 2 minute video and peruse this website for a sound way to choose a suitable scholarly journal.