Open-access venues in data management research
(maintained by Pierre Senellart)

Scope

This page provides a list of scientific venues (conference, journals, and some notable workshops) which indicates if they are open-access or closed-access. It focuses on international venues relevant to data management researchers (either in this core area, or in another connected area where data management researchers frequently publish), peer-reviewed by experts in the field, and reputable in their area.

Feel free to contact me if you would like me to include some relevant conference or journal that is currently not listed, or if you have corrections to make to some entries. Note that the reputability criterion is somewhat subjective, and I will make the decision as to whether a venue satisfies this condition.

Coverage of areas that are non-core data management research is not expected to be comprehensive; coverage of workshops cannot be complete either, due to the large number of existing workshops.

Dimensions of Open Access

We consider the following questions to determine how open a venue is:

  1. Is access to published articles restricted by the publisher? If published articles are not freely available to everyone, this is clearly not open-access.
  2. Does the publisher require some form of exclusive ownership on the article? This may be in the form of copyright transfer, or exclusive licensing. If so, the venue cannot be considered open-access, even if the publisher makes individual exceptions such as allowing reposting on the author's Web site or of a pre-version on a pre-print server. Indeed, it is still impossible for third-parties to redistribute published articles, hence build datasets of published articles.
  3. Is the publisher charging authors to publish their articles? If so, is the fee commensurate to actual costs? Examples of charges that are acceptable are those that are included in (reasonable) conference fees or low article processing charges (APC) such as those of LIPIcs. See further down for an estimate of the real cost of publishing and archiving a paper.

If content is freely accessible, APCs are non-existent or low, and no exclusive publishing rights are granted or the content is licensed by the publisher under a free, permissive, license (such as Creative Commons BY-SA or less restrictive), we classify the venue as open-access, in green in the table below. If content is freely accessible but other conditions are not satisfied, the venue appears in yellow; otherwise, in red. In addition, we also provide information on the license used for publishing content.

Note that many publishers offer the authors a choice between a closed-access model and paying a large sum (of the order of 1 000 USD or more) for the article to be freely available. This choice unfortunately makes it impossible to rely on the fact that all content published in a venue will be freely accessible (indeed, such an option is rarely chosen by authors); consequently, readers are forced to keep paying subscription fees for this venue. In addition, the amounts charged are disproportionate to what full open-access publishers charge. For these reasons, we do not mention this choice in the table below. We provide further down some indications on current article processing charges for different publishers.

A Note on Open-Access Terminology

This page deliberately avoids the traditional colour-based open-access terminology. In this terminology, “gold” open access means that the version of record is freely available from the publisher; “green” open access means that authors may deposit some version of the article (often a preprint or the accepted manuscript) in a repository or on their Web page, while the version of record remains behind a paywall; “diamond” (or “platinum”) open access is gold open access with no author-facing charges; “hybrid” refers to subscription venues in which individual articles can be made freely available for a fee, as discussed above.

Beyond the fact that they are not always used consistently, these terms have been co-opted by traditional publishers: “gold” open access is now commonly equated with charging authors large article processing charges, as if this were the only sustainable model; venues are advertised as “green” open access even though the publisher requires exclusive rights and imposes embargoes or restrictions on which version can be shared, so that the scientific record itself remains paywalled; “hybrid” venues let publishers collect both APCs and subscription fees. More fundamentally, this terminology emphasizes where and by whom a version of an article can be read, and obscures what actually matters: whether access to published articles is restricted, whether exclusive rights are required by the publisher, and whether charges to authors are commensurate with actual publication costs; these are the three criteria used on this page, as explained above.

List of Venues

Article processing charges are only deemed excessive (“yes” in the “Excessive APCs” column of the table below) when they are neither non-existent, low, nor included in the conference registration fee; this is currently the case for ACM venues, see the APC section at the bottom of this page.

AreaVenueTypePublisherAccess restrictedExclusive rights requiredExcessive APCsLicense
01 - DB Systems EDBT Conf. OpenProceedings no no no CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
01 - DB Systems PVLDB Mixed VLDB Endowment no no no CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
04 - Web and IR WWW Conf. ACM (since 2023; IW3C2 before) no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 - CS Theory STOC Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 - CS Theory ITCS Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
01 - DB Systems SIGMOD Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
02 - DB Systems & Theory AMW Workshop CEUR-WS.org no no no CC BY 4.0
08 - Data Mining KDD Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 - CS Theory SODA Conf. SIAM in principle yes no SIAM Copyright Policy
06 - CS Theory LICS Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl (since 2026; ACM/IEEE before) no no no CC BY 4.0
04 - Web and IR SIGIR Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
04 - Web and IR WSDM Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 - CS Theory TheoretiCS Journal Episciences.org no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory JACM Journal ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
02 - DB Systems & Theory TODS Journal ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
01 - DB Systems SIGSPATIAL Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
03 - DB Theory PODS Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
01 - DB Systems CIKM Conf. ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
03 - DB Theory ICDT Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
03 - DB Theory TIME Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory FOCS Conf. IEEE yes yes no IEEE Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems ICDE Conf. IEEE yes yes no IEEE Copyright Policy
06 - CS Theory LMCS Journal Episciences.org no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory DMTCS Journal Episciences.org no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory ToC Journal ToC no no no CC BY 3.0
06 - CS Theory CJTCS Journal U. Chicago no no no CC BY 3.0
06 - CS Theory ICALP Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory STACS Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory CSL Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
01 - DB Systems TKDE Journal IEEE yes yes no IEEE Copyright Policy
07 - AI SAT Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
07 - AI ESWC Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
07 - AI ISWC Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
02 - DB Systems & Theory VLDB Journal Journal Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems DaPD Journal Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems TLDKS Journal Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems DKE Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems Inf. Syst. Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
05 - General CS Inf. Process. Lett. Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
05 - General CS JCSS Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
06 - CS Theory TCS Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems CIDR Conf. CIDR no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory ToCS Journal Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
07 - AI JAIR Journal AI Access Foundation no no no CC BY 4.0
07 - AI IJCAI Conf. IJCAI no yes no IJCAI Copyright Policy
07 - AI AIJ Journal Elsevier yes yes no Elsevier Copyright Policy
07 - AI AAAI Conf. AAAI no yes no AAAI Copyright Policy
07 - AI KR Conf. IJCAI Organization no yes no IJCAI Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems DEXA Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
01 - DB Systems DASFAA Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
08 - Data Mining PKDD Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
09 - Machine Learning ECML Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
09 - Machine Learning NeurIPS Conf. NeurIPS Foundation no no no unspecified
09 - Machine Learning ICML Conf. PMLR no no no CC BY 4.0
09 - Machine Learning COLT Conf. PMLR no no no CC BY 4.0
09 - Machine Learning JMLR Journal JMLR no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory MFCS Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory FoSSaCS Conf. Springer no no no CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (since 2026)
10 - Prog. Languages ESOP Conf. Springer no no no CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (since 2026)
10 - Prog. Languages POPL Conf. ACM no no no CC BY 4.0
10 - Prog. Languages ICFP Conf. ACM no no no CC BY 4.0
10 - Prog. Languages PLDI Conf. ACM no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory FSCD Conf. Schloss Dagstuhl no no no CC BY 4.0
06 - CS Theory TOCL Journal ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 - CS Theory SIAM J. Comput. Journal SIAM yes yes no SIAM Copyright Policy
06 - CS Theory Fundamenta Informaticae Journal Episciences.org and Sage (formerly IOS Press) no no no CC BY 4.0 or arXiv non-exclusive (per article)
09 - Machine Learning ICLR Conf. ICLR no no no CC BY 4.0
04 - Web and IR TOIS Journal ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
08 - Data Mining TKDD Journal ACM no no yes CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
09 - Machine Learning TMLR Journal JMLR no no no CC BY 4.0
04 - Web and IR ECIR Conf. Springer yes yes no Springer Copyright Policy
08 - Data Mining ICDM Conf. IEEE yes yes no IEEE Copyright Policy
08 - Data Mining SDM Conf. SIAM in principle yes no SIAM Copyright Policy

The area classification is quite ad hoc, and some venues could also fit in other areas; this is not perfect, but the goal was simply to ease readbility of the table.

Many thanks to Antoine Amarilli for advice in compiling this list and presenting the information therein.

Article Processing Charges

Some publishers require an article processing charge (APC) for each published open-access article, as an alternative to the closed-access model. The author may have a choice between the two models. The cost is sometimes hidden to authors as part of conference registration fees. Here are the current APCs charged by different publishers:

Schloss Dagstuhl (LIPIcs)
80 EUR (net); these are mandatory charges, there is no closed-access choice.
ACM
700–1800 USD, depending on venue type and ACM membership status (temporarily lowered to 250–1450 USD in 2026); waived when an author is affiliated with an institution participating in ACM Open, and in some other cases.
IEEE
1800–2995 USD, depending on venue (2800 USD for hybrid journals such as TKDE).
SIAM
3750 USD.
Springer
per journal; 2590–2690 EUR or 3190–3290 USD for the journals mentioned in this Web page.
Elsevier
200–11400 USD, depending on venue (typically 2700–4050 USD for journals mentioned in this Web page).

The Real Cost of Publishing and Archiving a Paper

To put these amounts in perspective, it is instructive to estimate the real cost of disseminating and archiving a scientific paper, using arXiv as a reference point. According to its 2025 annual report, arXiv's total expenses for fiscal year 2025 (July 2024–June 2025) amounted to 6.7 million USD, including in-kind contributions from Cornell University and exceptional expenses related to arXiv's migration to the cloud; in calendar year 2025, arXiv received 284 486 new submissions. A back-of-the-envelope computation thus yields a cost of less than 25 USD per new paper; note that this amount covers not only the processing of new submissions (including moderation) but also the long-term archiving and serving of the entire collection of nearly 3 million papers. arXiv does not organize peer review; but neither do traditional publishers pay the scientists who review and, in most cases, edit the articles they publish. Even accounting for costs arXiv does not incur, such as copy-editing or typesetting where they exist, APCs in the thousands of dollars are one to two orders of magnitude above the real cost of publishing and archiving a paper.

List of (exclusively) open-access publishers

Other Resources

Contributors

Some content on this page has been contributed by: