Ways to provide Open Access to your work:
There are two basic approaches to making research findings Open Access. One is to deposit a copy of every article in an Open Access repository (this process is known as 'self-archiving' or "Green OA") and the other is to publish in Open Access journals (also known as "Gold OA") or in one of the growing collections of hybrid journals.
Self-archiving
Authors can make their work Open Access by posting their pre-print, post-print or, when permitted, the publisher version of the article in an Open Access repository. These are collections of articles, datasets and other supporting research-related material. They may cover a particular discipline or subject or they may be broad-scope. Institutional repositories are usually of the latter type though there may be specialised repositories within institutions - in departments or schools or even in research groups. A repository collecting the research outputs of a university or research institute is an excellent institutional tool as well as the means for enabling the institution's researchers to showcase their work. See much more on Open Access repositories here.
Open Access journals
Open Access journals are peer-reviewed just like traditional subscription-access (Subscription Access) journals except that they do not charge readers to use them. They cover their costs in other ways and publish their content online for free. Open Access journals operate like Subscription Access journals in every other way, including managing the peer review process. For much more on Open Access journals, see here.
Hybrid journals
Authors can also choose to publish in traditional subscription access journals whose publishers offer an option to make articles Open Access upon payment of a fee. The list of publishers offering this hybrid model in available here: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/