Module 6: Open Access to Research Papers
Rationale
Making scholarly research outputs openly available is easy, legal, and has demonstrable benefits to authors, making it a good beginning step for a researcher just beginning to explore the open world. There is a set of knowledge required to navigate the Open Access landscape, involving copyright, article status, repositories, and economics. This module will introduce key concepts and tools that can help a researcher make their work openly available and maximize the benefits to themselves and others.
Learning outcomes
- Researchers will become familiar with the history of scholarly publishing, and development of the present Open Access landscape.
- Researchers will gain a multi-stakeholder insight into Open Access, and be able to convey a balanced overview of the perceived advantages and disadvantages associated with Open Access publishing.
- Researchers will be able to describe some of the complexities of the current the Open Access landscape, including allowances for self-archiving and embargoes, copyright transfer, and publishing contracts.
- Based on community-specific practices, the researcher will be able to use the different types of outlets (repositories) available for self-archiving, as well as the range of Open Access journal types available to them.
- Each researcher will able to make all of their own research papers Open Access through a combination of journals and development of a personal self-archiving protocol.
- Researchers will be able to describe the current ebb and flow in the debates around preprints, and be able to locate and use relevant disciplinary preprint platforms.
- Researchers will be able to use services like ImpactStory to track the proportion of their research that is Open Access.
Development team
- Charlotte Weber - Team Lead
- Jon Tennant - Dinosaur whisperer, co-leader-ish
- Tobias Steiner - Open Ed Quizzard
- Encarni Martínez - Wonderful Brains
- Ritwik Agarwal - Open Science Activist