Open Access Week

Open Access Week is an annual international celebration to raise awareness of the issue of access to published scholarly research.

While you are at the University, you have the privilege of subscriptions to hundreds of databases and thousands of journals. Open access is a different approach that makes research available to everyone, everywhere. Here are a few resources for finding open access literature and for making your own work openly available:

Unpaywall and the OA Button can help you find legal, open access versions of articles
Directory of Open Access Journals can help you find open access journals in your discipline
Check out Approaches to Open Access Publishing for more on the various ways you can make your work openly available.
Learn how to Manage Your Rights to your own scholarship.

Make your articles open access

Publish in a fully open access journal. You can find open access journals at DOAJ.org  Many of these journals do not charge author fees. Prevalence of fees (and their costs) varies by discipline.

Create an all-open journal. The Libraries Publishing Services office hosts open access journals and other innovative dynamic content.

Publish in a subscription journal that allows you to post a version online. Publications have widely varying rules about which versions of articles may be shared. Check sherpa.ac.uk/romeo to see which version you can post.

Publish in your favorite journal and retain rights to share publicly. You can negotiate your publication agreement, or use an authors’ addendum to retain the right to share your work (and reuse without further permission in your own future works). Find more information and links to resources at z.umn.edu/knowyourrights.

Share your articles online in a scholarly repository. UMN authors are welcome to share their work through the Libraries at the University Digital Conservancy, but many scholars also post their works in disciplinary repositories such as arxiv.org or AgEcon Search.

Learn about the UMN Open Access policy. This policy encourages authors to make their works openly available and creates some additional options that authors may invoke for sharing.

Make your books open access

Publish your book open access. Many established University press and independent scholarly publishers are exploring options for open access books and monographs. See the innovations of the University of Minnesota Press. CLA authors can apply for funding for open access monographs through TOME.

Publish your book or textbook open access with the Libraries. University Libraries Publishing Services publishes open monographs and open textbooks.

Reclaim rights and republish your older monographs. Open republication can often extend the reach and impact of an existing book, especially those that have gone out of print. Authors often have a few options to reclaim their rights and make older books available to new or expanded audiences through open publishing. Learn more from the Authors’ Alliance. The Libraries Publishing Services office welcomes republication discussions with UMN authors who are interested in reclaiming rights.

Learn even more about open access!

Read about the University’s Open Access Policy.

Learn more about what the University Libraries’ are doing to support open access at www.lib.umn.edu/openaccess/oa-partnerships. 

Learn more about publishing with the University Libraries Publishing Services at www.lib.umn.edu/publishing.

You may have heard of “predatory publishers” but what does that really mean? 

Despite over 20 years of open access journals, myths about open access persist. We’ve responded to some of the more common ones here.