Figure 5. What to consider when publishing open access.

Authors have many junctures between article submission and appearance in a journal when they can make their research available while also saving money. After deciding which journal is a good fit for their research, if the journal has a lower Journal Impact Factor, authors can opt for the green route without sacrificing many potential citations (although a low profile journal likely will not have a prohibitively expensive APC). If the journal has a high Journal Impact Factor, whether author(s) should pay an APC comes down to their funding—if they have limited funds, they should forgo paying an APC and opt for the green route as that will be likely to garner more citations than publishing closed access. If authors go with the green route, they can submit their articles to a pre-print server before publication and archive in an institutional repository post-publication; the latter suggestion also applies to articles published closed access older than two years.