Open Access Week is a global event, now in its 6th year, promoting Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. The 2012 theme is Set the Default to Open Access.
To celebrate Open Access Week, the JCU Library is writing a series of daily posts about Open Access.
What is Open Access?
Open Access to research publications is defined as online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Open Access is made possible by the Internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.
Why is Open Access Important?
Open Access publishing leads to wider dissemination of information and increased efficiency in any research area, by providing:
- Open Access to Ideas: Whether you are a patient seeking health information, an educator wishing to enliven a lesson plan, or a researcher looking to formulate a hypothesis, making papers freely available online provides you with the most current peer-reviewed information and discoveries.
- Open Access To The Broadest Audience: as a researcher, publishing in an open access journal allows anyone with an interest in your work to read it - and that translates into increased usage and impact.
Taking a step back, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science by Michael Nielsen, published in 2011 by Princeton University Press discusses how the internet is fundamentally transforming the nature of our collective intelligence and how we understand the world.
The Open Access Publishing LibGuide provides information about Open Access within the JCU context.
For more information, contact the Research Services Librarian, Jackie Wolstenholme or the Digital Repository Librarian, Jo Ruxton.
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