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Open Access

Open Access during the COVID-19 Outbreak

In response to the unprecedented and rapidly changing circumstances related to the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, several academic textbook, ebook, and scholarly publishers have temporarily opened access to their copyrighted and otherwise restricted materials.

NOTE: Much of this material is being made available on a temporary basis. Please do not rely on ongoing free access (unless they are open access publications or open educational materials that are always freely available). We do not know when publishers' temporary offers will end, but we do know that the free access will not be permanent.

 

Open Resources for Researchers and Clinicians

  • LitCovid
    • LitCovid is a curated literature hub for tracking up-to-date scientific information about the 2019 novel Coronavirus. It is the most comprehensive resource on the subject, providing a central access to research articles in PubMed. The articles are updated daily and are further categorized by different research topics and geographic locations for improved access.
  • COVID-19 Research Pass (ReadCube)
    • The COVID-19 Research Pass (CRP) program provides direct access to over 26 million articles and is available to anyone studying or writing about COVID-19. CRP allows researchers to access any article from participating publishers they may need while studying COVID-19, including both open access and content behind paywalls. More details available at https://covid19.readcube.com/about.
  • COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv
    • List of OA preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv about COVID-19, updated in real time.
  • Digital Science / Dimensions
    • Digital Science is providing all relevant content on COVID-19 in Dimensions as a single export file, updated daily, to make sharing and distributing this research information easier. The file is available as a Google Sheet and as an Excel spreadsheet hosted on figshare. The file contains all relevant publications, datasets and clinical trials from Dimensions that are related to COVID-19. The content has been exported from Dimensions using a query in the openly accessible Dimensions application, which you can access at https://covid-19.dimensions.ai/.
  • Figshare Research Repository
    • Makes available all existing coronavirus research across Figshare as well as all new COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 research that is submitted in the weeks and months ahead.
  • ZB MED COVID-19 Hub
    • Tools and data sets related to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak and the SARS-CoV-2 virus
  • Publisher support for researchers, clinicians and all interested parties -- International Association of STM Publishers (STM)
    • Links to publishers' support centers and freely available articles. Page is updated regularly.

 

Open Access Datasets

 

Per the Wellcome Trust, the following journals and publishers have agreed to make their content accessible and reusable (list as of 3/16/2020):

  • American Society for Microbiology
  • Annals of Internal Medicine
  • The British Medical Journal (BMJ)
  • Bulletin of the World Health Organization
  • Cambridge University Press (CUP)
  • Cell Press
  • Chinese Journal of Lung Cancer
  • eLife
  • Elsevier
  • EMBO Press
  • Emerald Publishing
  • European Respiratory Society
  • F1000 Research Limited
  • Frontiers
  • Healthcare Infection Society
  • IOP Publishing
  • JMIR Publications
  • Karger Publishers
  • The Lancet
  • Life Science Alliance
  • Microbiology Society
  • New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
  • Oxford University Press
  • PLOS
  • PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA
  • Rockefeller University Press (RUP)
  • The Royal Society
  • SAGE Publishing
  • Science Journals
  • Springer Nature
  • Taylor & Francis
  • WikiJournal User Group
  • Wiley

These journals and publishers have agreed to make their content accessible in machine-readable formats and to license it in ways that allow text/data mining and machine-learning technologies.

 

Additional Information

The librarians at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library have created an additional Coronavirus Disease research guide that provides detailed and specific information for the public, clinicians, and researchers.

 

Open Resources in Support of Coursework and Online Teaching

NOTE: Much of this material is being made available on a temporary basis. Please do not rely on ongoing free access (unless they are open access publications or open educational materials that are always freely available). We do not know when publishers' temporary offers will end, but we do know that the free access will not be permanent.

  • UAL Libraries Support for Shifting to Online Teaching
  • Educause: Corporate Resources for Higher Ed Going Online During COVID-19
    • List of corporations and service providers who are offering special discounts on technology, open educational resources, or support for higher education institutions transitioning to remote work and online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. The list is sorted in three tabs including technology, OER, and access service offerings.
  • Annual Reviews
    • Access control to all content was removed as of March 16, 2020
  • Cambridge University Press textbooks
    • CUP is offering free, online access to higher education textbooks in HTML format during the COVID-19 outbreak. Over 700 textbooks, published and currently available, on Cambridge Core are available regardless of whether textbooks were previously purchased. Free access is available until the end of May 2020.
  • Cengage
    • For U.S. colleges experiencing unplanned, mid-semester impacts due to COVID-19, Cengage is offering students free access to all its digital platforms and 14,000 Ebooks through Cengage Unlimited, for the remainder of this semester.
  • GeoScienceWorld
    • The following GeoScienceWorld book publishers have extended public access to all of their ebooks through June 30, 2020: American Association of Petroleum Geologists; Canadian Science Publishing; Clay Minerals Society; Geological Society of America; Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland; PSAAPG; SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology; Society of Economic Geologists; University of Wyoming.
  • JSTOR Journals and Ebooks
    • JSTOR and its participating publishers have made an expanded set of content freely available to its participating institutions (this includes UA). Use the JSTOR Search interface to access this expanded content.
  • Project MUSE
    • Project MUSE is supporting its participating publishers in making scholarly content temporarily available for free on its platform. Participating publishers include Johns Hopkins University Press, Ohio State University Press, University of Nebraska Press, University of North Carolina Press, Temple University Press, and Vanderbilt University Press.
  • ProQuest Ebook Central
    • ProQuest Ebook Central customers impacted by COVID-19 will get unlimited access to all owned titles from these publishers through mid-June)
  • Public Books Database
    • Database of academic press monographs made freely accessible during the COVID-19 response.
  • University of Michigan Press
    • UMP will make all content in the University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection (UMP EBC) free-to-read for the remainder of the academic term. As of March 20, access restrictions will be removed for all 1,150+ titles in the UMP EBC until the end of April 2020. The UMP EBC contains the Press’s scholarly output published since 2012 as well as new books and older titles as they are digitized.
  • VitalSource (Multiple Publishers)
    • Provides open access to an expansive catalog of Etexts through May 25, 2020,

Video Platforms

  • Docuseek (Bullfrog & Icarus Films)
    • Docuseek has worked out an arrangement with its distribution partners, Bullfrog Films and Icarus Films, to make any of their titles on Docuseek available for educational streaming, at no charge, as long as the school has a legally-acquired copy of the title (any format), through June 30.
    • Contact your UA Libraries liaison if there are Docuseek titles from other distributors (e.g. Kartemquin, First Run, National Film Board) that you want to use in remote teaching during this period. If the Libraries own a hard copy of the title, we may be able to make arrangements for educational streaming.
  • JoVE (science videos)
    • JoVE is providing all of our Education video content free to use in STEM teaching efforts through June 15th.
  • Kanopy
    • Films available for free for March 13 - April 12 -- see downloadable guide
    • “Great Courses” catalog, free from March 16 for 4 weeks
  • On the Boards.TV
    • Free 48 hour access to all performances available through their site. The films featured on the website include international and US-based contemporary artists, some of whom are rarely seen live stateside, with works that might not be performed again.