This document discusses open access and author's rights. It defines open access as providing unrestricted access to scholarly works online. There are different types of open access like green OA which allows authors to self-archive works and gold OA which are works published in fully open access journals. Open access benefits authors through increased visibility, citations and reuse of works. The document outlines funder open access policies like NIH and ways authors can take control of their copyright like amending publishing agreements to retain more rights to self-archive and reuse works. It promotes the use of the university's institutional repository IDEALS to make works openly available.