Access to Information can be defined as the right to seek, receive and impart information held by public bodies. It is an integral part of the fundamental right of freedom of expression, as recognized by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(link is external) (1948), which states that: The fundamental right of freedom of expression encompasses the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. Access to information is necessary not only for the development of an individual but for the social, cultural, economic and technical development of the country. Reference: https://en.unesco.org/themes/access-information

1. Open Access

2. What is access to information?
Access to Information can be defined as the right to seek, receive and impart
information held by public bodies. It is an integral part of the fundamental right of
freedom of expression, as recognized by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights(link is external) (1948), which states that:
The fundamental right of freedom of expression encompasses the freedom to “to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers”.
Access to information is necessary not only for the development of an individual but
for the social, cultural, economic and technical development of the country.
Reference: https://en.unesco.org/themes/access-information-laws

3. What is Open Access?
Open access refers to any publication that is freely available to
readers at no cost and has no restrictions/limited restrictions of reuse
provided by the open license.
The free, immediate, online access to scholarly research results and
the right to use and reuse those results is necessary for further
research. The research output of any country depends upon the
availability of resources and reading materials for free or at a lower
cost. Open access helps in reaching these goals.

4. Why Open Access?
► From the author's point of view, it is important as their work gets seen by
more and more people.
► In the case of journals, Publication paywalls restrict a substantial amount
of research results reach the researchers based on which they keep the
foundation of new research.
► Open Access is free, unrestricted online access to scholarly peer-
reviewed publications.
► Open access movement is helping the researchers in developing and
least developing countries to have access to the articles that their
libraries do not subscribe due to financial issues.
► The research output of any country depends upon the availability of
resources and reading materials for free or at a lower cost. Open access
helps in reaching these goals.

5. How the publications can be made
accessible to the public?
► By publishing in open access journals.
► Archiving previously published works in an open access
repository or by Self-archiving.

6. Few open access journals
● Open Astronomy
● Canadian Journal of Bioethics
● RSC Advances
● Theory of Computing
● College & Research Libraries
● Scientific Data
DOAJ (Directory of open access journal) is an online directory of fully
open access journals (https://doaj.org/)

7. Two categories of Fully Open Access Journals
● Diamond or platinum open-access journals, which charge no
additional publication, open access or article processing fees.
● Gold open-access journals, which charge publication fees (also
called Article Processing Charges)

8. Gold Open Access
The category of open access in which the articles are freely and permanently
accessible to everyone, immediately after publication. These articles are
published under creative commons license and also available to reuse as long
as the authors are given proper acknowledgment as the copyrights to their work
are retained by authors. These articles can be published in two types of journals.
Fully open access journal, in which articles are freely available online to
everyone to read, usually after the author have paid Article Processing Charges.
Hybrid journals, which are subscription-based journals and have the option for
Gold open access also if an author wish to publish in this category.

9. Publishers’ archiving policies
► The scheme of using different colors (Gold, Green, Blue, Yellow, and White)
to highlight publishers’ archiving policies was proposed by JISC funded
RoMEO ((Rights Metadata for Open archiving) ) project in 2003 under the
Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), in
order to analyze the publishers' open access policies from around the
world and provide information about the self archiving permissions,
various rights and restrictions in standardize and summarized way that
publishers impose on their authors.
► These are called different routes of open access related to self-archiving
permissions and various restrictions that publishers impose on authors.

10. Sherpa RoMEO Database
Sherpa/RoMEO is a searchable database of publisher's policies regarding
the self- archiving of journal articles on the web and in Open Access
repositories. RoMEO's own database covers over 22,000 journals. RoMEO
also searches the Zetoc, DOAJ, and Entrez databases for additional
journals. RoMEO contains publishers' general policies on self-archiving of
journal articles and certain conference series. Each entry provides a
summary of the publisher's policy, including what version of an article can
be deposited, where it can be deposited, and any conditions that are
attached to that deposit.
Welcome to Sherpa Romeo - v2.sherpa

11. Sherpa Romeo
https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

12. Preprints, Postprints and Published
version
► Preprint: A preprint is a full draft version of a scholarly article or research
paper before it is peer-reviewed and published in a journal. it can be
shared by the author before and after a paper is published in the journal.
► Postprint: A postprint is a final version of a scholarly article or research
paper after it is peer-reviewed and incorporated all the reviewers'
comments and now ready to be published.
► Published version: The published version is also known as the Version of
Record (VoR). This is the version that has been published in a journal in
print and/or online. The article will include any copy editing and
formatting changes made by the publisher, and is usually available
online on their website in PDF or HTML form.

14. Self Archiving
Self-archiving is the act of (the author's) depositing a free copy of an
electronic document online in order to provide open access to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-archiving
Benefit to Authors
Authors can share their articles publicly in institutional repositories,
personal websites, and social sites that target researchers without
any restrictions, for the purpose of maximizing its accessibility,
usage and citation impact.

15. Green Open Access
Green open access is all about the self-archiving permission
provided by the publishers to their authors so that they can submit
either the preprint or the postprint version of their articles (but
before publication in a journal) in institutional repository making it
freely accessible to everyone. The copyrights are retained by the
publisher and the articles are freely accessible when the
embargo period is over (though the embargo period will not
apply in all cases.) However, there is a limited restriction on the
reuse of work.

16. Embargo Period for articles in the journals
Embargo period is length of time imposed by publishers for which authors
need to wait to make their articles publicly available (open access). It
begins when an article is formally published online in final form (peer-
reviewed version), which is the publication date of an article. embargo-
lengths can be from 6–12 months or longer from the date of publication of
article.
When embargo period expires authors can share their articles publicly in
institutional repositories, personal websites, and social sites that target
researchers without any restrictions, for the purpose of maximizing its
accessibility, usage and citation impact.

17. Two types of embargo period
1. which applies for self archiving: Until the embargo period is over authors of
articles are restricted to make the final version of their articles to be openly
accessible to anyone and anywhere. They cannot deposit their articles (peer-
reviewed version) on social platforms, institutional repositories, etc. which is
generally done by authors to promote their research. If author submits the
article in institutional repository then only metadata will be open to public
during embargo period and full text article will be made available when
embargo period is over.
2. which applies to open archive content: Open archive content of publishers
have the articles which are freely available to read and download. These
articles are added to their archive when their embargo period is over and are
open to subscribers and general public.

18. Three more routes of Open Access
Blue Open Access: In this authors are allowed to archive only
the postprint version of their article.
Yellow Open Access: In this authors are allowed to archive
only the preprint version of their article.
White Open Access: No archiving is allowed.

19. Plan “S” an initiative for Open Access publishing
Plan S is an initiative for open access publishing launched in 2018, with the aim
of making full and immediate access to the research publications a reality by
January 2020, It is supported by an international consortium "cOAlition S"
currently comprises 13 national research funding organizations and four
charitable foundations from 13 countries of European Union who have agreed to
implement the 10 principles of Plan S in a coordinated way, together with the
support of European Commission and European Research Council (ERC).
Plan S supports Gold route Gold route of Open Access in which the articles are
freely and permanently accessible to everyone, immediately after publication.
► https://www.coalition-s.org/
► https://librarycognizance.blogspot.com/2019/02/plan-s-initiative-for-open-
access.html

20. Some organizations promoting Open
Access
► SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)
(https://sparcopen.org/)
► OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association)
(https://oaspa.org/)
► cOAlition S (https://www.coalition-s.org/about/)
► Open Knowledge Foundation (https://okfn.org/)
► IFLA Open Access Task Force (https://www.ifla.org/news/ifla-open-
access-taskforce-established/)

21. Thank You
LibCognizance