Open Access

What is Open Access?

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.

OA is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major OA initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature insist on its importance. Just as authors of journal articles donate their labor, so do most journal editors and referees participating in peer review.

OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature. The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers. Business models for paying the bills depend on how OA is delivered.

by Peter Suber
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/brief.htm

• Budapest Open Access Initiative
• Open Access 101, from SPARC
• Membership Funds/Support for Open Access Publishing

Open Access 101 from SPARC

Open Access - 1 min. video explaining the concepts

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries, in partnership with McGill University Library produced a one minute animated video explaining the concept of open access to students and faculty in a simple and fun format. The video is available for free and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Open Access Is ...

Open access is defined as the dissemination of scientific and scholarly research literature online, free of charge, and free of unnecessary licensing restrictions.

Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL)'s OA flyer outlines the basic what, why and how’s of open access for faculty.

A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access (handout)

Other definitions of OA

• Budapest Open Access Initiative (2001)
• Berlin Declaration (2003)
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003)

Open Access for Students

The Right to Research: The student guide to opening access to scholarship

Developed in close collaboration with students, this guide is a tool student OA advocates will use to engage more of their peers. The Right to Research: helps students recognize the problem of access; introduces the principle of Open Access; indicates how Open Access can make life as a student easier, advance research, widen access to those who need it, and increase visibility for student scholars; and offers ways to support OA. New in January 2008.