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Scholarly Communication: Open Access

About Open Access

Definition  "Open access refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license restrictions). Open access can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, and monographs.” Wikipedia

Advantages & Disadvantages

What are the advantages of Open Access?

  • Equality – free for all
  • Increased readership
  • Share knowledge to create knowledge
  • Increased research impact

What are the disadvantages of Open Access?

  • Author or institution may need to pay to publish (article processing charge (APC))
  • May lack quality control
  • Sustainability
  • Number of high-quality, fully open access journals varies across disciplines
  • Difficult to determine legitimate open access journals
  • May be extra work for the researcher

Article Processing Charges (APCs) Support

Types of Open Access

  • Gold: Publisher makes all articles and related content open access. Often charge an article processing charge which the author or institution has to pay.
  • Green: Also known as self-archiving. The author deposits articles in a repository or website controlled by the author.
  • Hybrid: Mixture of open access and closed access articles. Typically authors, can play a fee to make their article open access.
  • Bronze: Delayed open access journals. After a certain amount of time, articles are open access.
  • Diamond / platinum: Open access journals which do not charge article processing charges (APCs). Funding is from external sources.

Open Access Publishing by Darren Chase http://library.stonybrook.edu/scholarly-communication/oa-prelec-2015/posters/

Find Open Access Journals

Resources