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
 
What are the Benefits?
- 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
 
How do you make your work openly accessible?
There are two routes to open access:
Gold 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
 
Green Open Access (or self-archiving)
- 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
 
Article Processing Charges
- 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 or Hybrid?
- 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
 
Too much Text?
Watch a short video:

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