Open Access Overview

What is Open Access?

Open access is access to published scholarly research that is free of most copyright and licensing restrictions and free of charge to any reader, anywhere in the world! Open access continues the existing generous practices of scholars who volunteer their writing, review and editing services. There are many paths to open access, and although none are cost-free, many significantly reduce distribution costs while maintaining high levels of rigor and quality and simultaneously increasing research access and visibility. While open access advocacy (and funder and institutional policies) tends to focus on journal literature, some academics also explore options for making their monograph publications freely publicly available.