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Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Communication

 

What is Scholarly Communication?
Scholarly communication is the process by which research and academic knowledge are created, evaluated, shared, and preserved. It includes both formal channels (such as peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and conference proceedings) and informal channels (such as blogs, preprints, listservs, or social media). This system ensures that scholarship is widely accessible today and preserved for future generations.
Adapted from: Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), “Scholarly Communication.”

What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) means making research outputs freely available online—without subscription or paywall barriers—and giving readers rights to use, share, and build upon that work in the digital environment. OA increases the visibility, reach, and impact of scholarship by removing financial and permission barriers, supporting a more equitable global exchange of knowledge.
Definition from: SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), 2023.

Why They Matter Together
Scholarly communication is at the heart of how knowledge moves through academia. But traditional publishing models often limit who can access that knowledge. Open Access is one response to this challenge: it works within the broader system of scholarly communication to make research more widely available, affordable, and sustainable. Together, these concepts shape how scholarship is created, shared, and used—on campus and worldwide.

 

International Open Access Week: Held the Last Week of October, Every Year!

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides public domain tools and licenses to people or organizations that need free, simple, and standardized ways to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; that ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of these works.  -Creative Commons

Types of Open Access (OA)

  • Bronze - articles published as OA are typically free to read online but do not have a license.  The articles are normally not available to download, reuse, or share.
  • Hybrid OA – an article is published in a subscription journal but the publisher charges the author an article processing charge (APC) to make individual articles open access in the subscribed journal. The individual article in the journal issue is OA but other articles in the same issue may not be OA.  This model is different from a Gold OA journal because a subscription holder is still paying for a subscription to the journal even though the author is paying an APC to the publisher to publish the article as OA.
  • Green – articles published under are self-archived and are typically either the pre or post-prints in institutional repositories.
  • Gold OA – all articles in a journal are published as OA, are freely accessible to anyone on the journal's website, and are authorized by a creative commons license.  Publishing costs are usually paid for by an article processing charge (APC) which is normally paid by the author or through another funding mechanism.
  • Diamond or Platinum - an author is not charged an APC to publish their article in an OA journal. Articles in these journals are typically funded by institutions, advertisers, philanthropists, or similar funding organizations. All articles are typically use a creative commons license and are free to read, download, share, and reuse by anyone.

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