Business Models and Access Types

Scholarly journals may be owned or published by various kinds of entities and may offer several different types of content access.  Here are some examples:

Journal Ownership

• Non-Profit Entities
  • Scientific societies, academies, or other kinds of mission-driven organizations. They generally focus on the field(s) most closely related to their member base.
  • University presses. Associated with a specific university and may receive some support from it, financial or otherwise. May also be commercial in nature.
• Commercial Entities
  • For-profit publishers who publish trade, educational, scholarly or reference content. May publish journals in a wide range of fields.

Content Access Types

• Subscription
  • Funded by payments from subscribing individuals or institutions to read the content.  Authors publish free of charge.
• Open Access
  • Funded by payments that are made by authors, their institution or funding bodies, or sponsors to publish.  A sponsor could be an institution,  society, funder, commercial body, or other organization.  Access to the content for readers is free.
• Hybrid
  • A mixed model where authors may choose to pay to make their articles open access while other journal content is accessible by subscription or purchase only.

Optica Publishing Group is a division of Optica, the society advancing optics and photonics worldwide. Income from the publishing activities is invested in either further development of publishing program, or in other society outreach and activities that benefit the optics and photonics community.