Answered By: Leah Cover
Last Updated: Feb 16, 2023     Views: 201

What is Open Access?

Open access articles are “free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment” (SPARC Open Access). Articles that are published open access are free to read and reuse, with immediate availability, and there are no academic barriers to finding and citing these articles.

 

How to find an Open Access article:


Finding out if an article is open access can be as easy as searching for that article by title in Google Scholar or in a normal Google search. The publisher Elsevier, along with a few others, has been trying to do their part in supporting the open access movement and has begun publishing some journals open access on their ScienceDirect page. Some Open Access advocates have developed an extension for your internet browser extension for your internet browser that will search the internet for Open Access options. As always you can also set up an appointment with one of our librarians to see what open access options there are for you.