Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives.
~ SPARC
SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.
View the SPARC Open Access Fact Sheet.
AccessOpen access removes geographic and socioeconomic barriers to knowledge, and enables all researchers to read, cite, and build upon your work. By making your work open access, you are furthering the democratization of knowledge and contributing to a greater understanding of our world.
ImpactBecause open access work is more widely available, readers are more likely to find and cite your work (as found in a number of studies).
RightsOpen access is about more than just access, it's about reuse. When you retain some or all of your author rights, you can upload your work to your own website or institutional repository, distribute your work to colleagues, and use your work in your own teaching.
Since open access materials are available freely on the web, the most common way to find them is by using Google or other search engines. To find open access journals that have been vetted for quality and openness, your best bet is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). To search for open access repositories by discipline, try the Directory of Open Access Repositories (DOAR).
In the library catalog, you can use the Open Access filter on the left-hand side to limit your results exclusively to open access resources.
Open access resources are also indicated with an orange unlock icon in the search results.
Additionally, there are a few browser tools you can use to help you search for open access versions of an article:
Unpaywall finds and presents open access articles that have been legally archived on other websites and repositories to users who may have found a paywalled version.
The Open Access Button is a free tool that allows you to find free, legal articles with just a click and that will email an author to get a copy if one isn't available. It's available as a Chrome and Firefox browser plugin, as well as a website.
Most scholarly open access journals follow a rigorous peer review process identical to those used by traditional subscription journals. One of the basic requirements for journals to be indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) is that all articles must go through a quality control system before publication, so checking for inclusion in DOAJ is one quick way to know if a journal is peer reviewed. Most open access journals also have their peer review process outlined on their website.
Open access is an indicator of the type of access, not the level of quality. Many open access journals are highly ranked in their fields, particularly in the sciences. For example, PLoS Biology's impact factor of 12.5 ranks it as #1 in 86 in the Journal Citation Report's biology category. Generally, you can use the same factors to evaluate an open access journal as you would a traditional journal (tip: try out the Journal Evaluation Rubric created by Loyola Marymount University). In addition, for open access journals, you can check for inclusion in the DOAJ and for how well use the journal meets the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Principles of Transparency.
All works are automatically under copyright protection the moment they are created and fixed in a tangible form. When you enter into a publication agreement with a publisher, the publisher usually requires you to sign over all of your copyright (in which case, you can't even use your published work in your own class!). Authors actually retain more or all of their rights when they publish in open access. Open access journals use Creative Commons licenses, which allow for specific reuses of the work with credit given to the original author.
For more common misconceptions about Open Access, check out "Open access: six myths to put to rest" by Peter Suber, published in The Guardian in 2013.
Open Access by A concise introduction to the basics of open access, describing what it is (and isn't) and showing that it is easy, fast, inexpensive, legal, and beneficial. The Internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work "open access": digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open access is made possible by the Internet and copyright-holder consent, and many authors, musicians, filmmakers, and other creators who depend on royalties are understandably unwilling to give their consent. But for 350 years, scholars have written peer-reviewed journal articles for impact, not for money, and are free to consent to open access without losing revenue. In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn't, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. Distilling a decade of Suber's influential writing and thinking about open access, this is the indispensable book on the subject for researchers, librarians, administrators, funders, publishers, and policy makers. as moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. Distilling a decade of Suber's influential writing and thinking about open access, this is the indispensable book on the subject for researchers, librarians, administrators, funders, publishers, and policy makers.
Open by Affordable education. Transparent science. Accessible scholarship. These ideals are slowly becoming a reality thanks to the open education, open science, and open access movements. Running separate--if parallel--courses, they all share a philosophy of equity, progress, and justice. This book shares the stories, motives, insights, and practical tips from global leaders in the open movement.
Open Access and the Humanities by If you work in a university, you are almost certain to have heard the term 'open access' in the past couple of years. You may also have heard either that it is the utopian answer to all the problems of research dissemination or perhaps that it marks the beginning of an apocalyptic new era of 'pay-to-say' publishing. In this book, Martin Paul Eve sets out the histories, contexts and controversies for open access, specifically in the humanities. Broaching practical elements alongside economic histories, open licensing, monographs and funder policies, this book is a must-read for both those new to ideas about open-access scholarly communications and those with an already keen interest in the latest developments for the humanities. This title is also available as Open Access via Cambridge Books Online.
Open Access by Academic libraries routinely struggle to afford access to expensive journals, and patrons may not be able to obtain every scholarly paper they need. Is Open Access (OA) the answer? In this ALA Editions Special Report, Crawford helps readers understand what OA is (and isn't), as he concisely * Analyzes the factors that have brought us to the current state of breakdown, including the skyrocketing costs of science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) journals; consolidation of publishers and diminishing price competition; and shrinking library budgets * Summarizes the benefits and drawbacks of different OA models, such as "Green," "Gold," Gratis," "Libre," and various hybrid forms * Discusses ways to retain peer-review, and methods for managing OA in the library, including making OA scholarly publishing available to the general publicAddressing the subject from the library perspective while taking a realistic view of corporate interests, Crawford presents a coherent review of what Open Access is today and what it may become.