Open Access is a broad international movement that seeks to grant free and open online access to academic information. A publication is defined '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.
Results of scientific research are published in scientific journals. These journals generally have high subscription costs, so that only wealthy institutions such as universities and hospitals have access to them. Other interested parties - teachers, patients, journalists, policymakers or SMEs - do not have free access. Erasmus University states that science should be freely accessible and reusable for everyone. After all, a large part of the research is publicly funded. In addition, Open Access is also beneficial for the researcher.
Open Access also benefits the researcher:
- Enhanced visibility and discoverability of research results;
- Easier (re-)usability of research results;
- Augmented citation score;
- Faster dissemination and wider application of new ideas and discoveries in healthcare, education and business.
The policy of Erasmus University Rotterdam is that all short scientific work has to be made available in Open Access. All EUR-researchers are required to share their short scientific work in Open Access, either by publishing Open Access in a journal or by depositing the work in the institutional repository.
Gold Open Access
Research output that has been published via the golden route is freely and immediately available on the publisher’s website to the reader. When publishing Open Access in a journal your publication will immediately be freely accessible in the final publisher version. Most Open Access journals ask for compensation for publishing your article Open Access, also known as Article Processing Costs (APCs). Publication costs are paid by: the author, the author’s institution, or the funding body. Keep this in mind when applying for a research grant.
The Dutch government has expressed a preference for the golden route for publicly funded research. Erasmus University supports this policy. Therefore, the University Library has made arrangements with several publishers that fully or partly cover the costs of Open Access publishing for EUR/EMC researchers There are also a lot of journals of which the University Library has already covered the APCs for researchers. For more information on this go to Publisher deals.
Green Open Access
In Green Open Access, an article is published in a traditional journal where readers have to pay a fee to get access to the publication. In this case the author can make his/her publication Open Access available by depositing the accepted version or published version in the institutional repository, Pure.
Diamond Open Access
Research output that has been published via the diamond route is freely and immediately available on the publisher’s website to the reader. Different from publishing via the gold route, diamond journals do not charge author any publication fees (APC’s). Diamond Open Access journals are usually funded via library subsidy models, institutions or societies. Browse the Directory of Open Access Journals to find a suitable journal for your research that does not charge APC’s.
More information
For more information contact the Open Access and Publication Support Team via: openaccess@eur-nl.libanswers.com