Content in this guide by Peter Fernandez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Scholarly publishing disseminates scholarly information across time and space.
Open Access harnesses modern technology to maximize the impact of scholarly literature by making it accessible for free (to the end-user) online.
In the words of Peter Suber: "OA removes price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions)." 1
Removing these barriers can enable new forms of scholarship and encourage innovations in distribution and analysis of research in order to "deliver wider and easier access for readers and larger audience and impact for authors." 1
Open access "is compatible with copyright, peer review, revenue (even profit), print, preservation, prestige, quality, career-advancement, indexing, and other features and supportive services associated with conventional scholarly literature." 1
For more information about Open Access see: Peter Suber's Open Access Overview or visit OASIS. Or click here for addtional resources.
1. Suber, P. Open Access Overview (definition, introduction).