What is Open Access?
Open Access means unrestricted online access to articles published in scholarly journals. This is achieved by research results either being published in Open Access journals, which gives free access for everyone, or by uploading research and making it available through open publishing archives.
Who is this useful for?
Researchers: Their research can be spread wider, and they can access other people's research more easily.
Funding institutions can achieve a bigger return on investments.
Knowledge companies gain free access to state of the art research.
Professionals such as health personell or lawyers, or privat persons with an academic interest, will be able to keep up to date more easily.
Research institutions will be able to collect their publications in electronic archives and spread the research of their employees.
Which advantages can Open Access give you as a researcher?
Research results which are freely accessible online have a proven citation advantage over results which can only be found in subscription based channels. All research is based on previous results, and by making research more widely available, faster, will make research work more effective and prevent duplication. Open Access can also benefit the society in general. Professionals outside the academic world, for example in the health sector or in knowledge intensive companies, will benefit greatly from better access to scientific information.
The paths to Open Access
- Gold Open Access - publish in scholarly journals that are freely available online for anyone with internet access. The expenses of publishing are covered by the author, by the institution where the author is employed, or the journal is funded by organisations such as Research Council of Norway.
- Green Open Access - peer-reviewed scholarly articles are made available in open archives (institutional or subject-specific). For example the DUO research archive at the University of Oslo.
- Hybrid journal - individual articles in subscription journals are made openly available by paying a publishing fee.
More information about Open Access
There are several good websites which cover the topic Open Access. We have chosen a selection for those who wish to study the subject more in depth.
- openscience.no - Norwegian website about Open Access (maintained by Sikt).
- "Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment." (Read more: SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)).
- The three B's make up the foundation of Open Access
Any questions?
Send an email to: duo-hjelp@ub.uio.no