Research Guides: Open Access: Home

What is Open Access?

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:

Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002)
Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003)
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003)

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Very Brief Introduction to Open Access
An explanation of open access by Peter Suber, one of the founders of the movement and open access scholar.
Open Access
A description of open access and why it is important from SPARC, a non-profit open advocacy group.
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
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).

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