Copyright for Authors

What is Open Access?

Open access (OA) content is shared freely on the internet, and ranges from publicly available content (e.g. self-archived articles of faculty) to that which can be fully revised and re-shared (e.g. OA textbooks). OA works are usually marked with a license (often a Creative Commons license), showing what users can do with the work.

OA can be applied to:

• scholarly journal articles,
• theses/dissertations,
• scholarly monographs or book chapters
• data 
• textbooks and supplemental teaching resources
• and more!

How can you make your work OA?

1.   by publishing in an Open Access journal or paying to make your work OA (gold OA)
2.   by "self archiving" an open version of your work at no cost (green OA)
3.   by marking your work with a Creative Commons license (only if you still hold copyright)

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee content.

Scholars have created many open access textbooks, supplemental materials, courses, and more that can be used in teaching. To find out more about these resources, visit the Open Educational Resources guide.