"Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment."(SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).
There are multiple ways for scholarly works to be open access:
- Authors self-archive in repositories
Authors choose to self-archive a version of the published article (pre-print or post print) in a repository that is free to access
- Open access journals
Articles are published in open access journals
- Hybrid model
Authors choose to pay for their articles to be published open access in traditional publications
Authors self-archive in repositories
The repositories can be at institutional or central level, or can be specialized in a specific subject.
Central level repositories
NSF-PARRepository for all publications resulting from NSF-funded research
PubSpaceRepository for publications resulting from NASA-funded research.
PAGESSearch the DOE Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (DOE PAGES) for scholarly publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles and accepted manuscripts, resulting from DOE-funded research.
PubMed CentralRepository for publications resulting from NIH-funded research
ROSA P (Repository and Open Science Access Portal)Public repository for National Transportation Library’s collection of over 30,000 items. Members of the transportation community and the general public can use ROSA P for all the open data and publications NTL acquires, manages and preserves for their benefit.
Institutional repositories
Discovering each institutional repository is a difficult task. Instead, it is recommended the use of specialized search engines to discover repositories of interest.
OpenDOARDirectory of Open Access Repositories is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories.
OpenAireOpenAIRE is a network of Open Access repositories, archives and journals that support Open Access policies. It is a project from the European Union with over 50 partners, from all EU countries, and beyond.
ROARRegistry of Open Access Repositories is a searchable international registry of open access institutional repositories and their contents.
OAIsterOAIster is a union catalog of open access resources worldwide
BASEOne of the world's largest search engines for academic open access web resources.
Digital Commons NetworkBrings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.
ArXiv This link opens in a new windowOpen access to preprints in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, economics, and electrical engineering and systems science.
CiteSeerComputer and information science
engrXiv PreprintsDedicated to the dissemination of engineering knowledge quickly and efficiently
GitHubRepository for open access software codes
Check this list for more disciplinary repositories:
Open access journals
Open access journals are journals freely available to readers. These journals are published by open access publishers or by traditional publishers.
Find open access journals titles from open access publishers:
BioMed CentralAn STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher of 256 peer-reviewed open access journals
Multidisciplinary open access journals
ACS OmegaACS Omega is an open-access megajournal published by American Chemistry Society (ACS).
AIP AdvancesAn open access peer-reviewed scientific mega journal published by the American Institute of Physics
BMJ OpenBMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas
F1000 ResearchOpen science journal for life scientists with post publication peer-review
HeliyonOpen access mega journal published by Elsevier.
IEEE AccessIEEE Access is a multidisciplinary journal published by IEEE.
Nature CommunicationsNature Communications is an open access journal that publishes high-quality research in biology, physics, chemistry, Earth sciences, and all related areas.
PLOS ONEPublic Library of Science (PLoS) publishes several well-established open access, peer-reviewed journals covering an array of disciplines in the sciences including PLOS Biology, PLOS One, and PLOS Pathogens.
Royal Society Open AccessOpen journal publishing research across all of science, engineering and mathematics
Scientific ReportsScietific Reports is a multidisciplinary journal published by Nature.
See the list of open access journals published by major publishers
Hybrid journals
Publishers can offer a mix of traditional and open access articles or they offer free delayed access to their publications. See the individual journal home pages and check what articles are available for free.
