Open Access: SWJ Going for Gold

Since its launch in 2009 the Semantic Web journal (SWJ) has been a firm supporter of so called 'green' Open Access (OA). For SWJ that means that all journal issues are published in accepted manuscript format on the semantic-web-journal.net webpage and are available to anyone, for free. The official published version of the issues are available only to licensed users at the IOS Press website. Some articles are available also in the form of Open Access (OA) through IOS Press as authors could opt-in to publish with full OA. In this case authors were asked to cover an 'Article Publishing Charge' (APC) to cover the cost of publication.

The costs involved in publishing SWJ are thus partly covered by income from user licences and partly from APCs, meaning SWJ is a hybrid between a licensed journal and an OA journal. This model has made it possible for the articles to reach a wide readership while not introducing financial barriers to authors wishing to publish in SWJ. However, in recent years there has been a call to action from an increasing number of funding agencies asking for a transition to full or gold OA. Today many funding agencies will cover on behalf of authors the associated APCs as part of the research grant. We strongly support this general trend towards full OA.

All authors submitting a paper to SWJ after 1 January 2020 will have their article published with full, gold, OA. The journal asks contribution to publishing costs in the form of an APC of EUR 500,- or US$ 550,- per accepted article. Full fee waivers of the APC are available to authors from developing countries. Authors who have submitted a paper before this date and have their article accepted after that date may also opt in to have their article published with OA at the introductory pricing. After 2020 we may gradually adjust costs, if necessary, and will monitor the OA landscape in Computer Science (and beyond) closely.

Full fee waivers of the APC are available to authors from developing countries. Authors who have submitted a paper before 1 January 2020 and have their article accepted after that date may also opt in to have their article published with OA at the introductionary pricing. Other than the manner in which the articles are disseminated (without any access barriers) and how the costs of publication are covered, the switch to full open access has no effect on how the journal operates.

Both SWJ and IOS are very excited about going gold and we will follow-up with more details and changes to our submission system shortly.

See also the announcement by the publisher. [added 1/3/23:] See also FAQ 3 for more information and adjusted APC