Open Access
Open access publishing is a model for the communication of research and scholarship with the following characteristics: 1) materials are in digital format; 2) on the Internet; and 3) freely available to users. Open access insures that scholarly work will be broadly disseminated and discovered. It is provided primarily through journals and institutional archives (sometimes called repositories).
Open access publishing is one cost-effective alternative to the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Peer-reviewed scholarly works created with no expectation of direct monetary return can be freely available to readers via the Internet. Authors own the original copyright to their work. The cost to produce digital open-access literature, generally lower than publishing print literature, is borne by researchers and their sponsoring organizations.
University of Tennessee Open Publishing Support Fund
Definition
- CreateChange: Open Access Expands Sharing
- Open Access Overview by Peter Suber
- University of Illinois: Open Access, What is It?
- Public Library of Science Frequently Asked Questions
Evolution: The open access movement emerged from three conferences.
- Budapest Open Access Initiative
- Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities
- Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing
Tools
- SHERPA/RoMEO provides a listing of publishers' copyright conditions as they relate to authors archiving their work on-line.
- Open Journal Systems Software for Journal Management and Publishing
- BOAI Open Access Journal Guides