Open access

By Madeleine Hatfield, Fiona Nash and Catherine Souch

 

What is open access?

‘Open access’ (‘OA’) is term that is frequently used within research. Many people define it simply as ensuring that research papers can be read by anyone without incurring a cost to the reader in the form of journals subscriptions or society memberships. However, open access actually extends further than this. It is about enabling people to read and use research for themselves. As JISC outline:

‘Open access can be more than making research available to read, but also allowing others to re-use that research. For example, allowing the content to be analysed using text mining or reused for commercial purposes.’

A key difference between making something free to read and making it open access is therefore in the copyright applied to the article. Almost all open access items have ‘creative commons’ copyright licences applied to them, which means that other ‘creators’ can use the research in any way that they would like, without paying any royalties, so long as they credit the original creator (although there are a few variants of these licences that are more restrictive).

Proponents of open access therefore argue that making research available in this way is good for society at large, because it allows other researchers to access and therefore build upon research more easily. This is particularly important when the research is publicly funded. Critics of open access often argue that it is an unfair system because it passes the cost onto the researcher, which not all researchers can afford, and that it also limits the rights that researchers have over their own data.

In the UK, the main research councils (RCUK) have stated that all research funded by them should be made OA in one form or another; the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) have made a statement in support of all research being as widely available as possible, with OA requirements specified for publications submitted to the next Research Excellence Framework; and the EU Commission have also expressed strong support for OA. This follows the lead of organisations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA, Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust.
 

Types of open access

There are two main strands of open access OA, both of which operate on electronic versions of publications:

1. ‘Gold’ OA, where the author or their funder pays a charge (known as an Article/Book Processing Charge APC/BPC) to make the publication freely accessible and resuable.

2. ‘Green’ OA, where publications are archived in a free-to-access repository either in their published form, or in the final form that they were accepted in but before they were published. Sometimes publishers will enforce an embargo period before a publication can be made available in this manner.

There are many helpful resources for identifying OA and ‘hybrid’ publications (subscription platforms with an OA option), including searchable indices setting out different publishing models such as the Directory of Open Access Journals and SHERPA/RoMEO.
 

Funding open access

Accessing funds to pay for APCs/BPCs is a challenge for many. This has become easier over recent years, as institutions, funders and even whole countries have entered into agreements with publishers to pay OA costs on behalf of their researchers. There are also many different discounts and waiver schemes, for researchers based in low- and middle-income countries. Information about these can be viewed on the websites of individual publishers/journals.

As an author you should therefore check with your institution (information likely is online or consult your library) and with the publisher to find out what resources are available to you and, importantly, to make sure you are fulfilling all institutional/funder requirements, particularly for depositing copies of accepted articles in repositories.