Open Access

Visibility

• Accessible - Open access content is available to anyone, not just subscribers.
• Viewable - When content is easier to access, it can lead to more views, downloads, and citations.

Dissemination

• Collaboration - Open access allows content to be shared globally, which helps global collaborative research.
• Reuse - When research is shared openly and freely, more people can access it, reuse it, and build upon it.

Impact

• Cultivation - With Creative Common licenses, it is easier for others to build on existing research while creating new research.
• Citations - Research might get cited more often because open access works are easily accessible.
• Value - Research is often conducted through the use of public grant funding, so when a work is made open access,  the public is able to access the content that they helped fund.
• Cooperation - Open access content can be accessed and used by anyone, which can aid the work of: journalists, policymakers, teachers, healthcare workers, professors, researchers, artists, and more.

"Diagram illustrating the benefits of open access" by Danny Kingsley and Sarah Brown via Australiasian Open Access Strategy Group is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Authors will give away copyright by publishing open access - FALSE!

Publishing open access does not require authors to give away copyright. Authors or the publisher can retain copyright while publishing open access by using a Creative Commons Attribution License to publish their article. Creative Commons Attribution Licenses allow authors or publishers to retain copyright while allowing others to distribute, adapt, and build upon the original work.

Learn more about Creative Common Licenses:

• About Creative Common Licenses
• Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions

Articles will not have an impact factor by publishing open access - FALSE!

Open access journals are just like other journals, in that the impact factor varies by journal. New journals (two years or younger) will not have an impact factor, but all other journals, open or not, will have an impact factor.

Learn more about impact factor:

• The Clarivate Analytics Impact Factor
• The Journal Impact Factor: A brief history, critique, and discussion of adverse effects

Open access journals are not prestigious or reputable - FALSE!

Open access journals are just like subscription journals, in that the quality of open access journals varies widely by journal.

Learn more about journal evaluation:

• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
• Addressing Faculty Publishing Concerns with Open Access Journal Quality Indicators

Recent Open Access News:

Summer 2022:

• Internet Archive filed a motion for summary judgment in Hachette v. Internet Archive case
• OCLC Files Lawsuit Against Clarivate Analytics
• Judge in Maryland strikes down library e-book law

Spring 2022:

• New journal focuses on how the mind and brain process language
• How research is being transformed by open data and AI
• ACS Publications commits its entire hybrid journal portfolio to become transformative journals
• The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) launches a new open access journal, PNAS Nexus
• The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is testing a new open science feature

Recent Open Access News at UD:

Spring 2022:

• Read and Publish agreement with NERL - The University of Delaware is now participating in the NorthEast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL) agreement with Cambridge University Press to support Open Access publishing. This means if you are affiliated with the University of Delaware (or another participating institution), you can publish your article Open Access, at no cost to you, in Cambridge University Press gold and hybrid journals, at least through 2024. Learn more.