Scholarly Communication

Scholarly communication is the process by which scholarly work is created, evaluated, shared, preserved, and organized. This guide provides information and resources about current issues in scholarly communication.

What is Open Access Literature?


  

“Open-access (OA) literature is

   • digital

   • online

   • free of charge

   • free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”
      
                   (From Peter Suber's "Open Access Overview")

Open access literature removes restrictions on authors’ use of their own work, allows authors to share work on own terms, and removes cost (to end-user) of accessing high quality research literature.
 For  a good introduction to Open Access literature, watch the SPARC video, "Open Access 101" (see right column) or look at the OASIS (Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook)..

Open Access Engines & Directories

Open Access 101

Sources of Open Access Literature

Gold OA: Open access journals (do not charge subscription fees and make articles freely available online without embargos) (e.g. PLoS)

Green OA: Literature that is available in disciplinary (arXiv) or institutional (Digital Commons @ EMU) repositories; this usually includes pre-prints or post-prints of journal articles (not the final publisher’s PDF)

Open Access Publishing Models

“Pure” OA: Journal is funded by sponsors, by donations, or by an institution/society (e.g. Global Advances in Business Communication)

Publication Fee: Author pays fee to have article published (ranges from $600 - $3,000) (e.g. PLoS)

Hybrid OA: Journal may offer some content OA,
while other content is subscription based (e.g.
BMJ)

More to Open Access Movement

Open Data

Open Science

Open Education Resources