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What is Open Access (OA)?

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This post is by Grant Denkinson, open access lead in Library Research Services. 

 A simple definition is that someone wanting to use research can do so without running into a closed door or have to hurdle barriers.

There has been a worldwide movement towards Open Access, particularly in the sciences. Some reasons that spring to mind are:
  • To help research become more useable and useful for everyone in the world.
  • So the public can see research we have paid for and so can our interpreters and commentators on it.
  • So we don’t need to rely on specific gatekeepers and interpreters of knowledge, but can choose others and follow trails of provenance back to sources.
  • So policymakers, regulators, businesses, medics, charities, voluntary groups and others can use, dispute and add to evidence and analysis.
  • So everyone can check data and analysis and find and correct errors, offer other opinions and hold researchers to account.
  • So research can be exploited in new ways, for example, with computer assistance.
  • So researchers with less privilege in the world can access and add to knowledge.
There are a few agreed, and sometimes disputed, definitions of OA. For example, are we talking about no cost to read, or is there a licence that allows the work to be reused, modified and extended in your own? “Free” might be “gratis” – not costing money but perhaps having other restrictions - or “libre”: talking about freedom to use in various ways.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) came out on 14th February 2002:

"By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited."

We often talk about manuscripts, literature or papers, but research outputs may also include data or software.

There are various ways of making work Open Access: either immediately or after an embargo period. Some are free, some cost money and some funds are available. Please see our web pages https://www.le.ac.uk/openaccess for more about how Library Research Services can support you, and how get in touch with us.

References
Budapest Open Access Initiative https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/

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