What is Open Access?
Open Access is not the same as OER. Open Access materials are still under traditional copyright. They cannot be copied, shared, or remixed. The thing that makes them distinctive is that, unlike traditional journal articles, you can read them on the web without having a subscription or paying for a download. This is important for the free flow of scholarly communication and the sustainability of libraries; however it doesn't allow you to embed the content in your course. You can still only link to Open Access articles, not copy or share them.
Open Access articles are articles that are free to the reader (and the library.) They are found:
- in Open Access journals
- in journals that allow a mix of traditionally published and Open Access content
- in repositories, which are usually hosted by universities and other research institutions
- on the open web, on author's web sites or on aggregator sites like ResearchGate
Open Access Articles
- Open DOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)A repository of repositories.
- ResearchGateA combination social networking site, content alert tool, and repository for scholarly articles. There are a few caveats: 1. Not all these articles meet rigorous standards for scholarly. 2. Not all these articles are Open Access. 3. Sometimes content disappears.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar searches scholarly content in journals, repositories, and web sites. When an article is Open Access, there will be a link to it. When it is not Open Access, there will only be information about it. Not all the content Google Scholar indexes meets rigorous criteria for scholarly.
