Open access (OA) resources are digital products of scholarship that are free to access for everyone, regardless of institutional affiliation, and are free of many copyright and licensing restrictions found in traditional journal publishing.
There are three foundational documents of the OA movement:
Criteria for best practice in open access publishing from the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) in partnership with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).