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What is Open Access?
Open Access scholarly research is free to any reader, anywhere in the world, and is also free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. It’s the flip side of academia’s gift economy, where scholars and researchers also write, review and edit for free.
Many OA paths significantly reduce distribution costs while maintaining high levels of rigor and quality and simultaneously increasing research access and visibility. Monographs as well as journals can be made freely publicly available.
Here are two video introductions to Open Access, followed by suggestions for further reading.
Watch "Open Access 101"
Watch "Open Access Explained"
Learn more about Open Access
- Peter Suber's "A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" or the longer "Open Access Overview"
- SPARC's Introduction to Open Access
- SHERPA's Glossary of Open Access Abbreviations, Acronyms and Terms
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Directory of Open Access Repositories
- Open Access Directory wiki
Questions or comments about open access issues at the University of Minnesota, and in general, can be directed to openaccess@umn.edu.