Scholarly Communication   Tags: data curation, data management, general topic guide, open access, scholarly communication  

Open access generally refers to free online access to scholarly materials without restrictions.  Free access is usually possible because authors self-archive their scholarly material or provide access to them through an institutional repository. Some high impact journals such as the Public Library of Science titles (i.e., PLoS Biology, PloS Medicine, etc.) provide articles free of charge while others like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offer articles free of charge after a 6 month embargo period.

Open Access Explained gives a quick overview of why Open Access is important for students and researchers worldwide.

For more information see Suber, Peter. A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access. 2004.