What is Open Access (OA)?
Open access is a broad international movement that seeks to grant free and open online access to academic information, including publications, data, and educational resources. Open access is a publishing model for scholarly communication that makes research information available to readers at no cost, as opposed to the traditional subscription model in which readers have access to scholarly information by paying a subscription (usually via libraries).
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- A publication is defined as open access when there are no financial, legal or technical barriers to accessing it - that is to say when anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within the information, or use it in education or in any other way within the legal agreements.
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- Open Science contains open access to academic publications, research data, learning tools, software, et cetera. Open data offers many benefits to scholarship. It increases the visibility of research results, it is citable thanks to digital object identifiers (DOIs) and it encourages the reuse of your data for new research questions and for verification purposes.
- According to SPARC, Open Data:
- Is freely available on the internet;
- Permits any user to download, copy, analyze, re-process, pass to software or use for any other purpose; and
- Is without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
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- There is an extensive and varied range of ‘open’ educational resources.
- Web lectures are video clips of presentations, lectures, addresses, etc. These recordings are sometimes enriched with additional material such as PowerPoint presentations, websites and publications.
- Open content refers to creative works, such as texts, images, sound or video, that are published under an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), which explicitly permits copying, adapting and distribution.
- Open educational resources (OER) are free lesson materials that are freely available for use and/or re-use. The material may be copied, adapted and distributed under certain conditions by way of an open licence, such as Creative Commons.
- Open courseware involves a free complete course comprising open lesson materials, which is freely available for use or re-use. The material may be copied, adapted and distributed under certain conditions by way of an open licence, such as Creative Commons. With open courseware, the emphasis is the lesson material; students do not receive any supervision and there is no opportunity to gain credits.
- A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course for an unlimited number of participants. A MOOC is freely accessible and free of charge, unless participants want a verified certificate. MOOCs give students access to lesson materials, as well as providing a complete course experience. Students are not awarded any formal credits.
To view a list of Open Access Resources, visit our UMass Boston Open Access LibGuide.
Open Access Policies at UMass Boston
In October 2012, the Faculty Council at UMass Boston approved a set of important motions focused on developments in scholarly communication and publishing in the digital age. These motions included the adoption of a campus-wide open access policy and the establishment of a Committee on Scholarly Communication. The final policies, amendments, and Guidelines decided for ScholarWorks at UMass Boston are below:
Policies and guidelines for ScholarWorks at UMass Boston
