What does Open Access mean ?
Open Access is a free and unrestricted internet access to production of scholarly research (articles, memoirs, raw data, conferences‘ proceedings, other published and unpublished materials), that is freely available for all users to read, make copies, print several copies, store in computer medium, distribute, search for or make references to full-text articles without prejudice to Copyright.
Open Access movement started in 1999, when prices of scholarly journals increased enormously, which created a paradoxical situation where researchers publishing in prestigious journals could not recommend these articles to their students, and quickly and easily access relevant research results of other academic communities for the simple reason, that university libraries could not afford subscribing to ever growing numbers of scholarly journals. Libraries were not able to satisfy users‘ needs; this, in turn, impeded development of research and innovations. In order to overcome barriers to distribution of scholarly information created by commercial publishers, researchers from various countries and research fields initiated Open Access movement. The goal of this Movement is to secure free and unrestricted internet access to results of scholarly research. Key stone of this Movement is Berlin declaration (2003) on Open Access to exact sciences and humanities information. It states that Open Access has to satisfy two conditions: authors have to enable free access to their studies and their use without prejudice of copyright; and to deposit them in at least one repository.
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Open Access strategies
Budapest Open Access Initiative has suggested two major strategies for Open Access of research papers: the Golden Road and the Green Road. However, it should be noted, that there is also the third Open Access strategy – the Grey Road.
The Golden Road
In case of the Golden Road Open Access strategy, the author publishes his/her research article in the Open Access journal. Open Access journals are electronic journals that give Open Access to already peer reviewed articles. Usually, in this case, so-called “author pays” business model is adopted. It is based on all publishing expenses being covered by authors themselves, supporting organizations or other sources while consumers have free access to the information. However, the number of mixed or so-called “hybrid” journals that are partly free is increasing as well. The list of Open Access journals can be found in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
The Green Road
Through the Green Road, the author can upload his/her published paper or the paper that has not been published yet to the Open Access repository (server where electronic documents and/or research articles are uploaded) right after the publication of the paper or after embargo period has passed. This Open Access strategy is also called self-archiving. OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) offers detailed list of such repositories.
The Grey Road
Whether the Grey Road actually constitutes a separate Open Access strategy or whether it is a variation of the Green or Golden Road is debatable, as is the question of whether the provision of free online access to grey literature constitutes Open Access at all. The Grey Road seeks to make grey literature (this term refers to conference papers, unpublished articles, limited edition and governmental publications) openly accessible. Thesis, conference material or unpublished research paper that has been made openly accessible can stand as perfect examples of the Grey Road strategy.
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Benefits of Open Access
- Open access encourages unrestricted sharing of information, international and interdisciplinary co-operation, and development of innovation that altogether can influence the science advancement.
- Open access information is more easily and faster reachable. Due to early spread of new ideas and inventions, the efficiency of scholar research increases in various fields – starting from medicine to economics.
- The prestige of the scholar increases; his/her work as well as research findings become widely known and seen in the academic world.
- The prestige of the university increases; research findings become more acknowledged and more often recited, and simultaneously, the visibility and the outcomes of the investment into science projects become more widely recognized. Also, there is a constant sharing of information.
- The prestige of the publisher increases; his/her publications are more widely seen and used.
- The prestige of country increases; Open Access to research articles enhances international co-operation, increases the opportunities for joint projects and research activities.
- Open access to scientific information helps to avoid repeated use of resources in various fields of scientific research as well as their redundancy.
- There is no need for scholar, his/her institution or society to pay in order to access the findings of the research that has been funded by tax payers’ because there is an effective and free access given for publicly funded research works. Thus, academics and society is provided with easily and fast accessible resources and data.
- Open access enhances the use and citation of documents. According to recent research, openly accessed documents are being cited on average three times more often than the rest.
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Initiatives and policy documents
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Open access resources
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Legal Issues
While implementing Open Access strategies, creating Open Access repositories and publishing Open Access journals, special attention has to be paid to copyright protection and content security issues.
In practice, furnishing full text documents for Open Access the authors and Open Access repository owners are often confronted with legal issues. In Lithuania copyright issues are regulated by Copyright and Related Rights Act and other acts of Lithuanian Republic, such as: Code of Administrative Violations of Law, sec. 214(10), Criminal Code Of Lithuanian Republic, etc. 191-194. Lithuania is a member of and is strongly influenced by International treaties, such as Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.
Most publishers have adjusted to changing needs of publishing scientific information by now and allow scientists to make their publications available via public access portals and personal websites either immediately or after the embargo period. Project’s SHERPA/RoMEO website provides information on policies of specific publishers related to copyright and electronic publishing in the Open Access repositories. To reach a mutual agreement with publishers and at the same time preserve the right to publish their works on the internet and/or to avoid the embargo period, most authors supplement the addendum to publication agreement ensuring appropriate copyright ownership.
In cases where simpler definition of Open Access content usage rights is desired, it is suggested to use universal licenses, defined by authors themselves according to needs and opportunities, known as Creative Commons. Creative Commons licenses are the direct output of Budapest Open Access Initiative. For more detailed information refer to the Creative Commons organization's website.
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Ask
To receive detailed information or consultation on Open Access policies at Vilnius University and with any other questions, please contact us by email at: zibute.petrauskiene@mb.vu.lt; vilma.karvelyte@mb.vu.lt, or call (+370 5) 2687124. Our experts will do their best to respond to the email address provided in less than 2 workdays.
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Glossary
Copyright – set of exclusive rights to the literary, scientific and artistic works.
Data Archive – virtual digital infrastructure for collecting, managing and disseminating raw empirical data (primary, „green“).
The Golden Road – when primary and original articles are published in officially registered Open Access journals.
The Green Road – self-archiving of digital publications in an openly accessible archive or repository either before or after publishing.
Open Content License – copyleft license designed for distribution of open content material.
Open Access Journals – electronic scientific and scholar journals that provide access to their publications without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself and matches Open Access movement’s academic quality requirements.
Open Archives Initiative (OAI) – seeks to develop and promote interoperability standards which facilitate Open Access and allow the dissemination of content in digital repositories.
Open Archives Initiative Metadata Harvesting Protocol OAI MHP is a mechanism to achieve this interoperability between digital repositories.
Embargo – embargo period is the length of time between the publication of an article in a journal and its public availability in Open Access repositories.
Institutional Repository – digital archive of intellectual products that stores, disseminates and manages scholarly output of an institution or several institutions and makes that output freely available.
Creative Commons – nonprofit organization, which seeks to provide free licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses that enable authors to set conditions for use of their creative work independently.
Metadata – data that describes other data.
Non-exclusive rights – rights are not limited or restricted to one party. Granting non-exclusive rights to the digital repository or publisher when author submits his work still enables him to grant, assign, or retain any and all rights he had before submission.
The Grey Road – Open Access to grey literature.
Grey literature – working documents, pre-prints, research papers, statistical documents, and other difficult-to-access materials that have not been published or that, although published, cannot be found through readily accessible sources.
Post-print – digital text of an article that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by a journal.
Pre-print – digital text of a paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by a journal.
Self-archiving – process during which academic author deposits metadata and electronic full text for one or more of his/her publications in an Open Access repository.
University Electronic Repository – digital repository of university scientific work, intended to ensure university intellectual output concentration, long term preservation, retrieval and access.
Subject Repository – repository established to collect and preserve material on a particular discipline or subject.
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Open Access Videos
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