OA is freely available, digital, online information. Open access (OA) is a publishing model for scholarly communication that makes research information available to readers at no cost.
Typically paperless in production of content
Authors may incur an Article Processing Charge (APC)
May rely on advertising revenue to maintain operations
Enables research outlets for niche and emerging areas of study
Offers unrestricted and enduring online access to publications
Authors retain various levels of copyright
Open Archives -- digital warehouse holding research, and other, outputs; allows for free and continuous access for consumers to read, download, and distribute
Examples
Open Publishers -- access + rights = open; work is typically published online with unrestricted access to read, download, and distribute; authors may incur a fee to publish
The three main types of open access are referred to as:
Green OA |
A version of the manuscript is freely available in a repository (self-archiving).
|
Gold OA |
Final version of manuscript is freely available immediately upon publication by the publisher (fully open access journal).
|
Hybrid OA |
Journal has both open and closed article access. Open access fee is usually paid by author during publication process.
|
Thomas Shafee / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Source: https://www.plos.org/files/HowOpenIsIt_English.pdf -- PLOS One