Defining Open Access | Educatus

"The Internet has transformed the ways in which academic research can be accessed. Researchers can now grant any person connected to the Internet unfettered access to their work at any time without cost. This free access is commonly called open access (OA). Open access is a property of a research article. An OA article does not require payment from a customer (no price barriers such as subscriptions) and has reduced permissions barriers (such as most copyright and licensing restrictions). Some commentators also argue that OA is the ideal way that academic research should be published. The four main types of open access are 'green' repositories, 'gold' academic journals, hybrid journals, and predatory journals. Repositories are online storage sites in which articles can be deposited, indexed and searched. Repository administrators do not conduct peer review themselves. Uploaded articles, however, typically have been reviewed elsewhere. See http://www.opendoar.org/ for a list of repositories ..."