OpenAccess

OpenAccess is a term used to describe the principle and practice of making scholarly research outputs freely accessible online to anyone, without subscription or pay-per-view barriers. It encompasses peer-reviewed articles, preprints, theses, data sets, and books, and is supported by authors, institutions, funders, and publishers through various models. Gold OA refers to articles published in OA journals or platforms where the publisher makes the final version openly available, often funded by article processing charges paid by authors or funders. Green OA involves authors self-archiving a version of their manuscript in an institutional or subject repository, sometimes after an embargo. Hybrid OA occurs when traditional subscription journals offer OA for individual articles for a fee. Diamond or platinum OA means articles are free to read with no APCs, typically funded by institutions or consortia. Bronze OA denotes articles that are free to read but lack explicit reuse licenses. Licensing and reuse: Open access is commonly associated with Creative Commons licenses that specify how a work can be reused, redistributed, and adapted. Repositories and platforms: Institutional repositories, disciplinary repositories such as arXiv, PubMed Central, and publisher platforms host OA content, enabling discoverability and long-term preservation. Impact and challenges: Open access aims to broaden dissemination, accelerate discovery, and improve public understanding. Challenges include sustainable business models, equity in publishing costs, quality assurance, licensing clarity, and the risk of predatory journals. Policy developments, such as funder mandates and initiatives like Plan S, have promoted OA adoption. History: The movement traces back to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) and subsequent declarations, and it has grown with mandates from research funders and universities worldwide.