Authors

• Stephanie Normand

Abstract

Open Access (OA) publishing is a publishing model that has arisen in recent years to combat the issues with traditional publishing. While traditional publishing models hide scholarly content behind expensive and prohibitive pay walls and subscriptions, OA seeks to provide access at little to no cost to users. While providing widespread access to academic content is a noble goal there has not been a consensus on how to achieve this goal. There are multiple OA publishing models but the most recent model is Diamond Open Access. The idea of Diamond OA is fascinating but it is difficult to understand; it produces high quality scholarly content without charging writers or users. It seems too good to be true and yet there are platforms, such as Episciences, which currently use this model. How these platforms function and whether or not this system can be more widely used in the future are topics of great interest. However, it is also important to examine this system carefully and not be distracted by its exciting ramifications. Diamond OA sounds very appealing at first glance; however, it is not without its flaws. This paper will present a balanced review in an attempt to answer the question: is Diamond OA the future of open access?