Open Access

Open-access (OA) literature 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. 

OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce then conventionally published literature. The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers. Business models for paying the bills depend on how OA is delivered.

Attribution: Extracted from A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access by Peter Suber, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

For more information, check out the following links:

• Open Access Overview: An introduction to open access for those who are new to the concept by Peter Suber.
• What is Open Access?: An overview of open access by SHERPA/RoMEO.
• What is Open Access?: An overview of open access by Charles W. Bailey.

Open Access removes price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions).

Making your research Open Access

• facilitates wider dissemination and readership of your research 
• increases citations for your research
• enhances your research profile
• provides opportunities for future collaborations and further funding

Two options of making your research Open Access:

• Green Open Access: Deposit your research output in an open access repository such as an institutional repository (e.g. NIE Digital Repository) or a disciplinary repository. Availability of your publications or research output depends on the self-archiving policy of publishers.
  
  
• Gold Open Access:  Publish in an open access publication or a hybrid journal. This usually involves payment of Article Processing Fee upon acceptance for publishing.