Open access resources refer to digital materials, often scholarly or educational in nature, that are freely available for anyone to access, use, and distribute without the need for subscription fees or payment. These resources promote knowledge sharing, collaboration, and the democratization of information.

1. FEHROZ AHMAD
1ST AUG2023

2. According to Peter Suber
“Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free
of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing
restrictions.”
 Open access is a publishing model for scholarly
communication that makes research information available
to readers at no cost, as opposed to the traditional
subscription model in which readers have access to
scholarly information by paying a subscription (usually via
libraries).
 One of the most important advantages of open access is
that it increases the visibility and reuse of academic
research results.

3.  The open access movement began in the 1990s,
as access to the internet became widely available
and online publishing became the norm.
 1990: First Webpage
 1991: An online repository of electronic
preprints, known as e-prints, of scientific papers
is founded in Los Alamos by the American
physicist Paul Ginsparg. It was renamed
to ArXiv.org in 1999.

4.  1993: Creation of the Open Society
Institute (renamed the Open Society
Foundation [OSF] since 2001).
 1998: Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is founded.
PKP has created the Open Conference
Systems (2000), Open Journal
Systems (2001), Open Harvester Systems (2002)
and the Open Monograph Press (2013).
 2000: BioMed Central-first and largest OA science
publisher and PubMed Central, a free digital
repository for biomedical and life sciences
journal, is founded.

5.  2001: The Public Library of Science (PLOS) was
founded as an alternative to traditional
publishing. PLOS ONE is currently the world’s
largest journal by number of papers published .
 2002: Release of the Budapest Open Access
Initiative (BOAI). The 2002 BOAI Declaration
states that "the literature that should be freely
accessible online is that which scholars give to
the world without expectation of payment”.
 The nonprofit organisation Creative Commons is
founded in the United States. It makes several
copyright licences, known as Creative Commons
licences(CCL), available to the public free of
charge.

6. 2003: The Bethesda Statement on Open Access
Publishing is drafted in Maryland. The statement
stresses the need for rapid and efficient
dissemination of research results in accordance
with the principles of open access.
The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to
Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities is
drafted-by encouraging researchers to publish
their results in open access.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is
launched as a central directory for open access
journals.
2005: OpenDOAR (a.k.a. DOAR)-hosts repositories
that provide free,open access to academic outputs
and resources

7. 2008: OA WEEK-International Open Access Week is
celebrated anually(last week of October),to create awareness
about the OA scholarly publishing among researchers and
publishers.
 2012: Directory of Open Access Books(DOAB)-DOAB is a
discovery service for peer reviewed open access books and
book publishers that indexes and provides access to high
quality, open access, peer-reviewed books.
 2017: Unpaywall Button/Extension launched-An open
database of free scholarly articles.
 2018: Plan-S is an initiative for open access science
publishing launching in 2018.The plan was structured
around 10 principles.The key principle states by 2021, “all
scholarly publications on the results from research funded
by public or private grants provided by national, regional
and international research councils and funding bodies,
must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open
Access Platforms, or made immediately available through
Open Access Repositories without embargo.”

8. Types of Open Access
 There are different models of open access publishing and publishers
may use one or more of these models-
i. Gold Open Access
 Gold OA refers to the most common type of open access, where articles
and content are immediately available through the journal's website.
 There are no subscription fees to access the resources through a Gold
OA journal.
 The finalized, edited, and peer-reviewed version of the work is available
to anyone that has the technological means to access it.
 Public Library of Science(PLOS) and BioMedCentral are examples of OA
journals. The Directory of Open Access Journals can also provide a list of
other medical journals that are OA.
ii. Green Open Access(a.k.a. Self-archiving)
 Green OA refers to articles and content that are shared outside of
publications, such as institutional or scholarly repositories.
 The works in the repository may be the finalized version of a work, or it
can be a draft of a work before it is edited and peer-reviewed.
 Authors can choose (or may be mandated) to deposit copies of their
published work into their institution’s scholarly repository.

9. iii. Hybrid Journals
Hybrids journals are those that still mainly follow traditional publishing processes
and pay-for-access subscriptions, but also have certain articles that are open
access.
 Note:Usually in Gold OA and Hybrid OA models, publishers publish articles
with Creative Commons (CC) licenses.
OA publications are predominantly available through gold and green
OA channels. Another few models have been introduced very recently by the
commercial publishers for featuring some parts of their scholarly contents in OA
domain. Some of the popular OA models as practiced by the e-journal publishers
are:
i. Hybrid OA-This model contains a mixture of OA articles and closed access
articles.
ii. Delayed OA- In Delayed OA model, publishers offer free access after a specified
period, anywhere from 6 months to 2 years.
iii. Short-term OA- . In Short-term OA model, publishers offer free access until a
specified period, anywhere from 6 months to 1 year. Then after, contents are
available to subscribers only.

10. iv. Selected OA-In Selected OA model, publishers
selectively offer free access to selected contents
only. Other contents are available to subscribers
only.
v. Partial OA- In Partial OA model,
publishers selectively offer free access to contents
of particular sections only, e.g., research papers,
but not review papers. Other contents are available
to subscribers only.
OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES
Open Access (OA) refers to all electronic
resources that are made widely available on the
internet without licensing and copyright
restrictions. Open Access resources can include
articles, journals, books, conference proceedings,
theses, videos, music, etc.

11. i. Open Access Repositories
An open access repository is defined as a
collection of full-text documents available in
online databases on the Internet that can be
accessed freely and instantly.
Example: OpenDOAR
ii. Open Access Journals
Open access journals are journals whose articles
are available and reusable worldwide free of charge
and without restrictions immediately on
publication and are published under CC licences.
Open access journals are the primary medium for
what is known as gold open access.
 Example: DOAJ

12. iii. Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational
materials that are either in the public domain, or published
under open licenses (e.g., CC) that specify how materials can be
used, reused, adapted, shared and modified according to specific
needs. They can include textbooks, lecture notes, syllabi,
assignments and tests.
Example: OER Commons
iv. Open Access Books
Example: Directory of Open Access Books(DOAB)-provides free
access to Over 69,500 academic peer-reviewed books.
v. OA Theses & Dissertations(0ATD)
0ATD (OATD.org) aims to be the best possible resource for
finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published
around the world.

13. Benefits of publishing open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits by removing
barriers to your work.
 1. Quality
All submissions will be fully peer-reviewed.
 2. Visibility
Content is freely available online immediately upon publication, giving
the potential for increased exposure and dissemination.
 3. Accessibility
Gold open access allows all readers with internet access around the
world to access published research without having to pay.
 4. Global Impact
 Anyone can benefit from the output of research which can help to drive
innovation and lead to new discoveries.
 5. Funder compliance
 Many funders are now mandating for research to be published via open
access.


14. Benefits of Open Access
i. Wider Access