Research Guides @ Fordham: Scholarly Communication: Understanding Open Access

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What is Open Access?

"Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment."

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)

Background on Open Access

Understanding Open Access : When, Why & How to Make Your Work Openly Accessible by Lexi Rubow, Rachael Shen, Brianna L. Schofield
Authors Alliance, 2016.
Open Access by Peter Suber
MIT Press, 2012.
Another copy is available through the Internet Archive.

Journals & Open Access

SHERPA/RoMEO
A database of journal publisher copyright policies and guidelines on self-archiving.
Open Access Spectrum Evaluation Toolkit
A guide to evaluate OA journals developed by SPARC.
Think Check Submit
A checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.
Author Rights
Check the Author Rights tab of this guide for information about publishing agreements and author addenda.

Open Access Terminology

What is green open access?

Green open access is content archived through digital repositories.

What is gold open access?

Gold open access is content delivered by open access journals with peer-review.

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