Open Access

Open Access is a publishing model that enables the free online availability of journal articles and scholarship, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these works, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful, noncommercial purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

The foundations of Open Access were delineated by:

• Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002)
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003)
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003)

By reducing barriers to reading, discovery and sharing, Open Access fuels innovation through knowledge transfer. Wider sharing of scientific discoveries and insights accelerates changes, inventions, treatments, and solutions that benefit the world.

Additional resources on the importance of open:

• Why Open Matters
  • SPARC’s explanation of the importance of their Open Agenda
• The Moral Dimensions of Open
  • By Karina Ansolabehere, Cheryl Ball, Medha Devare, Tee Guidotti, Bill Priedhorsky, Wim van der Stelt, Mike Taylor, Susan Veldsman, John Willinsky

• UNESCO’s Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Open Access

• The Ethics of Open Access Publishing
  • By Michael Parker
• The Academic Ethics of Open Access to Research and Scholarship
  • By John Willinsky and Juan Pablo Alperin

Open Access publication allows and provides:

• More exposure for your work
• Researchers in developing countries can see your work
• Practitioners can apply your findings
• Higher citation rates
• Your research can influence policy
• The public can access your findings
• Compliant with grant rules
• Taxpayers get value for their money

Open Science (or Open Scholarship) is the movement to align research and publication processes with the ideal of advancing collective knowledge and accelerating innovation to benefit all humankind. Open Scholarship makes research outputs and scholarly practices more accessible and inclusive; it emphasizes practices of research, publication, dissemination, and preservation that foster a culture based upon collaboration and sharing.

• Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)
• Foundations for Open Scholarship Strategy Development
• FAIR Data Principles
• Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools (JROST)
• Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS)

Want to learn more? Here are a few resources that provide more in-depth information about open access:

• Open Access Overview (Peter Suber)
• The Academic, Economic and Societal Impacts of Open Access: An Evidence-based Review (J.P. Tennant, F. Waldner, D.C. Jacques, et al.; 2016)

• The State of OA: A Large-scale Analysis of the Prevalence and Impact of Open Access Articles (Piwowar, Priem, Lariviere, et al.; 2018)