Zero-Embargo Green Open Access: A Look Back at the First 18 Months

"The term ‘zero-embargo green open access’ refers to the immediate public accessibility of an accepted manuscript. This means an author can self-archive in an open access (OA) repository (such as a service operated by their institution or research funder), or share it by any means they see fit, as soon as the article is published in a journal. Requirements around making author manuscripts public typically present authors with a binary choice when submitting to most scientific journals—either:

1. Pay an article publishing charge (APC) to publish their version of record as gold open access and enable immediate sharing of the final version at time of publication; or
2. Accept the publisher’s embargo period (typically 6 or 12 months) prior to self-archiving. This does not meet some funders’ requirements...."