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Open access is the immediate, online availability of scholarly content that is free from most copyright and licensing restrictions.
When work is open access you can read, download, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text without financial, legal, or technical barriers.
Open access applies to articles, books and book chapters, conference papers, theses, working papers, data and images and is made possible by the consent of the author or copyright holder.
Learn how to publish your research open access through Read and Publish Agreements
Open access is the free online availability of scholarly information, with no limits on reuse, re-purposing or sharing. You can choose to publish your research as open access.
Different journal models available:
Examples of open access journals:
There are a number of pathways available to make your research open access. Options include green, gold and hybrid open access.
Green open access involves self-archiving your research in a repository.
Features of green open access:
You may choose to publish your research in an open access publishing outlet. This is known as gold open access.
Features of gold open access:
Gold open access discounts:
Contact the library for more information.
With hybrid open access you may publish the article in an outlet of your choice and pay the publisher to make the article open access.
Hybrid journals contain both closed access and open access articles.
There should be no embargo period for hybrid open access journals.
If you have chosen to publish your research as open access, it is advisable to ensure that your publication is legitimate and offers peer-review as part of the editorial process.
There are a number of tools you can use to evaluate and check your journal:
| Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) | Provides an authoritative list of open access publications. |
| Ulrichsweb database | Check the peer review status of a publication. Look for the referee uniform icon. |
| Think Check Submit | Checklist for researchers to use when they are investigating if a journal can be trusted. |
| Journal Citation Reports | Authoritative source of journal impact factor data which also lists impact data for open access journals. |
Open data allows researchers, scholars and students access to a wide array of data and research to support further scholarship.
Making data available allows for broader replication, new research ideas, higher citation counts and building upon past research.
A number of publishers such as PLoS and Nature are requesting that data sets which underpin journal articles are also made open to ensure transparency in the research process.
You can publish your data with Research Bank.
Access open data:
Open access books are less common than journal articles but follow similar publishing pathways.
In hybrid open access book publishing, the publisher provides free access to open access editions of their books and offers other editions for sale.
This might include access to a free version of the ebook with extra features and services available at a cost.
Library or university-based presses support the publishing of open access books through financial subsidies, infrastructure or staff.
This approach generally means you will not be charged an open access publishing fee.
A publisher may charge a processing fee to allow your work to be published as open access.
With this model, your funder – such as the university or a funding grant – usually covers the cost.
Library-based models are developed using the library acquisition budget as a source of support.
An example would be a consortia approach such as Knowledge Unlatched.
Libraries can also pay for open access licensing, which gives their clients access to extra services and content in open access books.
This model allows publishers to invite open funding for a title to be published as open access.