Open Access

Open Access (OA)

Peter Suber, one of the founders of the open access movement, defines open access as follows: "Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder."

(adapted from "A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber”)

OA saves you money through providing free access to research output such as journal articles, conference papers, data sets, and more.

" If your work is behind a paywall then give the library a call, make Open Access a part of your practice and research benefits overall!"

~ Carly Lightfoot

Benefits of Open Access

There are many benefits to Open Access publishing. By making your work freely available online, anyone can read work. This can help raise the visibility of your publication and allow the public to benefit from your research.

Reasons for publishing Open Access

• Increasing the citation rate
• Your findings available easier and quicker to scientific communities you study.
• Your research can impact beyond the academy and influence public policies.
• Your research available universally. 
• Controlling costs for libraries and readers
•  Taxpayers get value for money

Look through SPARC's Open Access Fact Sheet. 

There are two models of Open Access, Gold and Green.

Gold Open Access: It means, articles  are available for reader without charge. However, Pre- Publication cost might be still applied. The Golden open Access break down into two categories, based one whether there is a Pre- publication charge which is often called "Article Processing Charge, APC"

• Gold OA, APC- based: "In a Gold OA APC-based model, the publisher charges an author (or another entity on their behalf ) a fee (article processing charge, or APC) once the author’s journal article is accepted for publication. There is significant variation in the amount charged for APCs—from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per article, often with STEM journals falling in the upper range. This charge opens the article to all readers on the publisher’s platform, sometimes (and preferably) under a Creative Commons or similar license that allows for broad reuse rights."
• Gold OA, non-APC-based: "In the case of non-APC funded Gold OA , the costs to produce content (articles, journals, books) are covered without the author’s financial participation, and—in our terminology—without fees levied on a per-publication basis. As with all Gold, the materials are open upon publication with no content subscriptions required for access. Typically, Non-APC Gold OA models pool resources from various sources: institutions and libraries (e.g. Knowledge Unlatched); funders (e.g. Annual Reviews of Public Health); endowments (e.g. Americana Journal of Popular Culture), or other sources and then redistribute these resources to manage the costs of publishing."

Green Open Access: "Green open access is repository-based open access. Green OA models are agnostic about publisher open access behaviors, relying instead on institutions and authors to take steps to make otherwise toll-access works freely available in online repositories that may be (and often are) managed by institutions. In essence, successful green open access requires: the right to share a given scholarly output, a copy of it, the motivation to share it, and a location for sharing it (i.e., a repository)."

More resources:

Green or Gold routes to Open Access

Debunking some OA myths

MYTH 1: 

Open access journals are not peer reviewed. 

MYTH 2:

Open access journals are of poorer quality ​than traditional, subscription-based journals.

MYTH 3:

 Open access articles are not copyrighted.  

MYTH 4:

Open access is just a passing fad.

MYTH 5:

Open access only helps readers, not authors.​

From Ben Mudrak's white paper: Open Access Publishing: Five Myths