What is Open Access?

Unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research
Free of charge
Free of most restrictions on use (though attribution is still a must)
Defined by the Bethesda, Berlin and Budapest statements on open access publishing

Increases impact – studies have found that OA research has higher citation rates
Increases the amount of accessible research – no more being locked out by paywalls
Stimulates collaboration
Unrestricted access to research, regardless of economic status or institutional affiliation
Freedom to use and re-purpose research materials in new and interesting ways
Enables access to the research that their taxes fund and encourages lifelong learning
Allows independent researchers to access research
Gives businesses and other organisations access to research and encourages innovation

There are two routes to open access:

Available immediately upon publication
Available at the source of publication (usually the journal website)
No charge at point of access for users
Typically paid for with APCs (article processing charges) though there are other business models
Typically made available under a Creative Commons licence

Subject to journal enforced embargo periods
Available from a secondary source, such as a subject or institutional repository
Author accepted manuscript rather than formatted publisher version deposited by authors themselves
Check SHERPA/RoMEO for your journal’s Green OA policy

Fees charged to authors by journals to recover the costs of publication
Average price around €1.200 but can vary between €0 and €4.000+
Fees charged by hybrid journals tend to cost more than those charged by pure open access journals

Pure open access journals contain only work made openly accessible
Hybrid journals contain a mix of both open access and subscription based content
Some of these journals have been accused of “double dipping” as they are receiving income from both APCs and journal subscriptions

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source: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Link to the original. Link to the creator.

WIAS – Open Access