Open Access at Warwick and Beyond
- What is Open Access?
- Who benefits from Open Access?
- How is work made open access?
- What can you do to participate in the Open Access Movement?
- What is International Open Access Week?
What is Open Access?
The core tenet of the open access movement is centred around the removal of barriers to information.
The free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research has the power to revolutionise the way in which researchers work and collaborate and is made possible by the consent of the copyright holder and the Internet. With the amount of information currently available on the Internet the growing trend is for people to consume what is immediately available, when research has been made open access it assures that information of the highest quality is available to everyone who needs it. The roots of open access can be traced as far back as the the 1960's but the modern movement can be considered to have begun in 1990 with the launch of the Electronic Journal of Communication, an early example of a free, online, peer-reviewed journal1.
Who benefits from Open Access?
Open access to information serves the interests of many different groups; from the researchers who gain from a wider audience than they might have had from traditional journal publication to the readers who are no longer restricted to just what their library can afford; from the funding bodies who can now rely on public access to publicly funded research to the members of the public who no longer have to negotiate costly access to journals. Researchers in particular see a big benefit in that once available in an open access way their research papers are visible to every search tool on the web, researchers who deposit in repositories like WRAP see an added level of visibility as metadata (catalogue records) from the repositories are actively harvested by large aggregators providing more ways for people to find your research. Also there is growing evidence that papers that are made available open access can increase the number of citations received by each paper2.
How is work made open access?
Today open access is chiefly archived through two main routes; Gold OA and Green OA.
- Gold OA refers to the Open Access Publishing model, this differs from the traditional publishing process only in the way it is funded, for Gold OA articles upon acceptance of the article the publisher charges the author(s) a fee to process their article and make it available in an open access way upon publication. Often this fee comes from the research funders rather than directly from the author.
- In comparison Green OA works alongside traditional publishing models and allows author's to take advantage of both traditional journal publishing and open access availability. Here at Warwick this is supported by WRAP, a service that allows you to submit a version of your journal article to be made available in an open access way, while the final version remains with the publisher. In this route there are no charges to the author or your finding partners and anything made available in WRAP, or repositories like like it, is permitted by the rights holders. For more information see our FAQs.
Wider participation:
There are many ways in which you can get involved in the open access movement even if you can't attend the events during Open Access Week, here are a few ways for you to start:
- Contribute your articles to WRAP. This is an easy way to contribute to the open access movement and raise both your profile and that of the University. Submission has been made as quick and easy as we can, simply upload the text, tell us which version it is and cut and paste a reference for the work into the submission form.
- Consider using an open access journal for your next publication. The Directory of Open Access Journals currently lists 5308 open access journals and more are being added all the time.
- Take advantage of some of the funds/deals available to University researchers to help with open access publication. The Library's subscription to BioMed Central entitles University researchers to a discount on the article processing charges when you use BioMed Central and the Wellcome Trust has granted the University a fund to cover the article processing charges for research funded by the Wellcome Trust. For more details on the BioMed Central subscription and the Wellcome Trust Open Access Fund follow the links!
International Open Access Week.
What is International Open Access Week?
International Open Access Week is a global event, organised by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) that is now in its fourth year aimed at promoting the benefits of using Open Access as a method of disseminating scholarly research. Supporters from the open access community, from researchers, funders, librarians, students and members of the general public are increasing in number every year as the movement gains speed.
References:
1 Suber, Peter et al. (Last updated 02/06/2010). Timeline of the open access movement. (accessed 27/08/2010).
2 Wagner, A. Ben (2010). Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 60, Article 2. (accessed 08/09/2010)
Search our FAQs:
News: New JISC funded report on how open access aids knowledge transfer of scholarly research.
Visit the Knowledge Centre for an interview and podcast from the WRAP team on Open Access and an article by the WRAP Team on research data, including issues of Open Access.
