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ENVR 305: Open Access Sites

What is Open Access?

open access, n. and adj.|


 
Forms:  see open adj.   and access n.
Frequency (in current use):  
Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: open adj., access n.
Etymology: <  open adj. + access n.
 
 B. adj. Usually in form  open-access.
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 1.  Library Science. Of or relating to open access (sense A. 2).

1948    Science 14 May 498/2   The principle of the open-access collection seems never to have gained general acceptance [in Japan].
1974    Jrnl. Afr. Hist. 15 347   Although the official ‘public’ library in Tananarive formerly had the open-access system, one found no files of local newspapers on its shelves.
1986    Austral. Jrnl. Chinese Affairs 15 107   Whether material is open access and available for loan..depends on considerations such as how many copies of a work the library has in its collection.

Open Access Academic Sources

  • BioMed Central :  A pioneer of open access publishing, BMC has an evolving portfolio of high quality peer-reviewed journals including broad interest titles such as BMC Biology and BMC Medicine, specialist journals such as Malaria Journal and Microbiome, and the BMC series.
  • JSTOR Open-Access : Explore academic content on JSTOR that is open to everyone, everywhere. Search thousands of free journal articles and open access book chapters.
  • Sci-Hub : Sci-Hub is a website with over 64.5 million academic papers and articles available for direct download. It bypasses publisher paywalls by allowing access through educational institution proxies. Sci-Hub stores papers in its own repository, and additionally the papers downloaded by Sci-Hub are also stored in Library Genesis (LibGen).  Sci-Hub was founded by Kazakhstani graduate student Alexandra Elbakyan in 2011, as a reaction to the high cost of research papers behind paywalls, typically US$30 each when bought on a per-paper basis.In 2015 academic publisher Elsevier filed a legal complaint in New York City against Sci-Hub alleging copyright infringement, and the subsequent lawsuit led to a loss of the original sci-hub.org domain. Following the first domain loss, Sci-Hub has cycled through a number of domains, some of which have been blocked in certain countries. Sci-Hub has been controversial, lauded by parts of the scientific and academic communities and condemned by a number of publishers.

More Information about Open Access

The Dark Side of Scholarly Publishing