- What is Open Access?
- How is Open Access provided?
- Why provide Open Access?
- Open Access repositiories and author self-archiving
- Open Access publishing
- Open Access policies
What is Open Access?
The provision of "Open Access" to research literature is generally understood to mean free online access to copies of peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, theses and working papers. It is not self-publishing nor a way to bypass the peer review process. Open Access is simply a means of making traditional research publications available to all would-be readers.
How is Open Access provided?
Open Access can be provided by various means but the two main options are:
- publishing in Open Access journals eg BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science journals
- "self-archiving" copies of published articles in Open Access archives or repositories eg QUT ePrints.
For more information please refer to The Joint Information Systems Committee Open Access page.
Why provide Open Access?
If you share information, you end up with more of it. Providing Open Access to research literature may increase the rate of knowledge generation and knowledge transfer. If you remove the cost barrier, your research output can accessed by the widest possible audience.
Recent research indicates that Open Access significantly increases the likelihood that an article will be cited. This is becoming increasingly important now that bibliometrics feature so prominently in research assessment exercises.
Open Access repositories and author self-archiving
Where the author chooses to publish in a subscription-based journal, the article would normally only be available to subscribers of that journal. This means that the article is only reaching a subset of potential readers. However, when the author also self-archives a copy of the article in an open access repository, those without a subscription will also have access to the work. QUT ePrints is an example of an open access repository.
Open Access publishing
Open Access journals are peer-reviewed journals whose content can be accessed by readers free of charge via the Internet. While most open access journals only have an online existence, some also have a subscription-based print version.
Open Access journals operate under various business models:
- Some open access journals are published by universities that subsidise the operation (e.g. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary and International Studies at University Technology Sydney).
- Others levy a charge to cover the costs of peer review and publication eg BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science (PLoS). This fee can often be financed from the research grant or covered by the researcher's institution. Most open access journals will waive this fee if the author is not able to cover it.
- Some commercial publishers allow authors to pay for open access. For example, under Springer's Open Choice option, authors can pay to have their article made freely online via the Springer website as well as being included in the print and online versions of the journal that is available to subscribers.
In 2008, QUT is an institutional member of two Open Access publishing organisations, BioMed Central and Public Library of Science. This means article processing charges for QUT researchers who submit manuscripts to these publishers will be paid by QUT Library. Read more about QUT's Prepay membership and about BioMed Central and Public Library of Science publishers.
What about journal quality?
Some Open Access journals have already established a reputation for high quality content. For example, PLoS Biology, published by Public Library of Science recently achieved an impact factor of 13.9.
Most open access journals allow authors to retain copyright. Articles published by BioMedCentral and PLoS are licensed under the under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence. 
This allows anyone to download, reuse, reprint, distribute or copy articles from BioMed Central and PLoS journals, providing the original author and source are credited.
How do you find relevant Open Access Journals?
The Directory of Open Access Journals currently has over 2000 journals in its index. This includes over 300 in health sciences and 89 in life sciences.
Open Access policies
QUT Eprint Repository Policy holds that the publicly available research and scholarly output of the University is to be located in the University's E print repository; QUT ePrints. Research output intended for commercialisation or individual royalty payment or revenue for the author or QUT is excluded.
The Wellcome Trust requires grantees to provide unrestricted access to the published output of research they have funded.
In the US, Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a bill into the U.S. Senate in December 2005, that would mandate Open Access to the bulk of federally-funded medical research. Called the American Center for CURES Act of 2005 (S.2104). Unlike the earlier NIH Bill; it:
- requires free online access and does not merely request it
- requires deposit at the time of acceptance by a journal
- shortens to six months the permissible delay or embargo between deposit and free online access
For the latest news and information on Open Access see the SPARC Open Access Newsletter