Scholarly Communications and Publishing Services

Peter Suber,  a leading voice in the open access movement, defines open access as literature that is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. Open access primarily refers to scholarly journal articles and is entirely compatible with peer review. 
 

- - From A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access by Peter Suber

Open access, the practice of providing unrestricted access to scholarly research outputs, has several benefits:

• Increased Visibility and Impact:  Open access makes research freely available to anyone with an internet connection, maximizing its visibility and potential impact. This can lead to more citations and greater recognition for researchers.
• Accelerated Research Progress: By removing access barriers, open access facilitates faster dissemination of research findings. This enables other researchers to build upon existing knowledge more quickly, accelerating the pace of scientific progress.
• Global Knowledge Sharing: Open access allows researchers from around the world, including those in resource-constrained settings, to access cutting-edge research. This promotes global collaboration and enables a more inclusive research community.
• Public Engagement and Policy Impact: Open access enables broader public access to research findings, fostering greater public engagement with science. This can lead to informed public discourse and better-informed policymaking.
• Cost Savings: Open access can reduce the financial burden on individual researchers, institutions, and libraries, as it eliminates subscription fees and paywalls associated with traditional publishing models.
• Preservation and Long-Term Access: Many open access repositories and platforms ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of research outputs, safeguarding them for future generations.
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Open access to research can spur innovation and entrepreneurship by providing entrepreneurs and industry professionals with access to the latest research findings, which they can use to develop new products, services, and technologies.
• Ethical Considerations: Some argue that open access aligns with the principles of academic freedom and equity, ensuring that knowledge is not restricted by financial or institutional barriers.

Overall, open access has the potential to transform the scholarly communication landscape, making research more accessible, efficient, and impactful.

Each type of open access has its own benefits and challenges, and the choice of model often depends on factors such as funding availability, disciplinary norms, and institutional policies.

• Green Open Access (Self-Archiving): Authors publish their work in a subscription-based journal but also deposit a version of their manuscript in a repository (e.g., institutional repository, subject-based repository). This version is made freely accessible, usually after an embargo period set by the publisher.
• Gold Open Access (OA Publishing): Articles are published in an open-access journal, which makes them immediately and freely available to readers upon publication. The costs of publication are often covered by article processing charges (APCs), paid by the author, institution, or funding body.
• Diamond Open Access: Also known as platinum or pure open access, this model involves journals that are open access and do not charge authors or readers any fees. These journals are often run by academic societies, universities, or other non-profit organizations and are sustained through institutional support or volunteer efforts.
• Diamond/Open Review: Journals that follow this model provide open access to articles and also make the peer review process transparent and open. Reviews and reviewer identities may be disclosed along with the published articles.
• Hybrid Open Access: Subscription-based journals offer authors the option to make their individual articles open access upon payment of an APC. This allows authors to comply with funder or institutional OA mandates while still publishing in traditional subscription journals.
• Delayed Open Access: Articles become openly accessible after an initial period of restricted access (embargo period), during which access is limited to subscribers or members of the publishing organization.
• Bronze Open Access: This is a term used to describe articles that are freely available on publishers' websites but do not meet the criteria for being considered true open access. These articles may lack licenses that permit reuse or may have embargoes that delay public access.
• Gratis Open Access: This refers to free access to articles without any cost, but the copyright and licensing terms may vary. Some gratis OA articles may not allow users to redistribute or reuse the content for commercial purposes.
• Libre Open Access: This type of OA not only provides free access to articles but also allows users to reuse, remix, and redistribute the content, often with minimal restrictions. Articles are typically published under licenses like Creative Commons.

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The OSTP Public Access Memo, officially titled "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research," was issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 2013 during the Obama administration. In August 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) issued an update on the 2013 memorandum. 

This memorandum directed federal agencies with annual research and development budgets exceeding $100 million to develop plans for ensuring public access to the results of federally funded research. It required these agencies to make peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication. Additionally, agencies were encouraged to make the underlying data associated with these publications accessible in a timely manner.

The goal of the OSTP Public Access Memo was to maximize the accessibility and impact of federally funded research, fostering transparency, innovation, and economic growth. By making research outputs freely available to the public, the memo aimed to accelerate scientific discovery, encourage collaboration, and provide taxpayers with greater access to the results of research they helped fund.

The OSTP has prescribed the following timeline to achieve the goal of the memorandum:  

• December 31, 2025 - Recommended deadline for federal agencies to put new updated public access policies into effect.
• December 31, 2026 - Date for agencies to publish full implementation plans for public access policies regarding metadata collection and assignment of personal identifiers. 
• December 31, 2027 - All agency public access policies for metadata collection and assignment of persistent identifiers (PIDs) must be in effect.

Additional information: 

• OSTP Public Access Memo 
• OSTP Memo Frequently Asked Question
• OSTP Press Release
• OSTP Memo Impact (Association of College and Research Libraries Webinar) 

An open repository, also known as an open-access repository, serves as a digital hub for storing research findings. It offers unrestricted and perpetual access to research outcomes, allowing anyone to freely utilize, download, and distribute the content.

Authors seeking reputable open access journals for their research publications can use the following databases provided by F.D. Bluford Library: