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Open Access

This guide will provide recommendations and assistance in finding information about Open Access.

Open Access publications are free of charge, available online for all users, with fewer restrictionsThis guide will answer your Open Access Questions: Why do we need OA? Where do I find OA materials Can I make my research OA? How it TTU supporting OA?

Start on this page to learn more about:
Benefits of OA
Types of OA
OA Organizations and Advocacy Groups
Benefits of Open Access

Scholarship benefit when the broadest audience possible can access and use the latest research and creative outputs. 

Open Access allows:

  • text and data mining tools to track research trends 
  • expand researchers' global networks
  • empower students and new scholars to learn, grow, and contribute within the scholarly community
  • bring more attention to individual scholars and their institutions

Research studies have shown that Open Access articles receive higher citation rates.

"We also examine the citation impact of OA articles, corroborating the so-called open-access citation advantage: accounting for age and discipline, OA articles receive 18% more citations than average, an effect driven primarily by Green and Hybrid OA." - Piwowar H, Priem J, Larivière V, Alperin JP, Matthias L, Norlander B, Farley A, West J, Haustein S. 2018. The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ 6:e4375 

Open Access allows people outside of academic institutions to access a broad range of research and creative materials. 

Open Access allows:

  • practitioners to put  research and creative outputs into use
  • policy makers to apply the newest findings
  • businesses and industries to revolutionize using new research
  • taxpayers to access the research they funded

Open Access is one way of creating more equitable access to knowledge. 

Open Access can:

  • give access to researchers in low- and middle- income countries that may be priced out of journal subscriptions
  • lessen the financial impact on researchers and students at smaller and less well funded institutions
  • give representation to underrepresented scholars in disciplinary communications
Types of Open Access

Green OA publishing

Publishers allow authors to provide public access through self-archiving of either or both the pre-publication (pre-print) or published (post-print) version of their work. Authors can upload these preprints or post-prints (with publisher permission) in an institutional or disciplinary archive.

Examples: ThinkTech, arXiv.org

Gold OA publishing

Publishers make content completely open access immediately or after an embargo period. The works are accessed from the journal or publisher's website. 

Examples: PLOS (Public Library of Science) and BioMed Central.

Gratis OA is information that is available free of charge, while some copyright and licensing restrictions may still apply.

Libre OA is information that is free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restriction.

  • While 'free' implies that the information does not cost anything to access, remember that OA publishing still often involves a cost to the author to publish the work.
OA Organizations and Advocacy Groups