Open Access
Open access is free online access to the outputs of publicly funded research. JISC and the Scholarly Communication Group strongly support open access and encourage authors to publish in open access journals, self-archive their articles in open access repositories, or both.
Open Access
Open access is free online access to the outputs of publicly funded research. This includes journal articles, conference papers, theses, reports, and any other outputs. Because the research is publicly funded, the principle is to make the results freely and readily available to all. Readers can then access the material and use it for their own teaching and research purposes.
Open access is not self-publishing, nor a way to bypass peer review and publication. It is not a second-class or cut-price publishing route. It is simply a means to make research results freely available online to the whole research community.
Open Access Journals
Repositories & Self-Archiving
New Business Models
Authors Studies
Approaches to Open Access
There are two main ways to achieve open access:
- Open access journals – An author publishes his/her research in an open access journal. The article is peer reviewed and published as with traditional journals. However, libraries don’t pay subscriptions fees and the online version is freely accessible to all. See Open Access Journals for more details.
- Open access repositories – An author deposits a copy of his/her article in an open access repository that is freely accessible to all. This could be an institutional repository, a subject-based repository, or both. Because the author deposits the article, this is known as ‘self-archiving’. See Repositories and Self-archiving for more details.
Each approach is different, but the end result is the same. The author’s article is available on the Internet and freely accessible to all. Publishing in open access journals is sometimes called the ‘gold road’ to open access and self-archiving is called the ‘green road’.
Benefits of Open Access
Open access enhances scholarly communication by making the results of publicly funded research available to all. Opening the knowledge base to all means more researchers can build on it and there is less duplication of effort. The research has more impact and society benefits. Individual stakeholders also benefit:
- Authors – Their research is available to a wider audience and is therefore likely to be more widely read and cited
- Readers – Better access to funded research means they can compete on a more level playing field
- Funding agencies – Their funded research has more impact and provides a greater return on investment
- Institutions – Open access improves the visibility of an institution’s research, enhancing its reputation and ability to attract better students and faculty
- Publishers – Wider dissemination is likely to improve the visibility of their publications and increase journal impact factors.
JISC Resources on Open Access
Other resources on Open Access