Resource Guides: Open Access: Open Access Resources

Contact Us

Sally Gore, MS, MSLIS
Manager, Research & Scholarly Communications Services
sally.gore@umassmed.edu
508-856-1966

Lisa Palmer, MSLS, AHIP
Institutional Repository Librarian
lisa.palmer@umassmed.edu
508-856-4368

Tess Grynoch, MLIS
Research Data & Scholarly Communications Librarian
tess.grynoch@umassmed.edu
508-856-2467

Leah Honor, MLIS
Research Data & Scholarly Communications Librarian
leah.honor@umassmed.edu
508-856-2458

Research and Scholarly Communication Services Support

Please refer to our guides for specific information about:

Dispelling Myths about Open Access

Common myths about open access abound, such as:

Open Access Journals are the ONLY option for Open Access (No, they're not!)
Open Access Journals are of poorer quality than toll access journals. (Nope.)
Access is already easy. (No!!)

Read more about these and other Open Access myths in this blog post from Peter Suber: Open Access: Six Myths To Put To Rest (from The Guardian, October 21, 2013)

Start an Online Open Access Journal

Here are helpful resources to review if you are considering starting an online journal:

E-Journal Planning and Implementation: Brief List of Considerations compiled by Lisa Palmer, Institutional Repository Librarian, UMass Medical School
Developing Open Access Journals: A Practical Guide by David J. Solomon is a comprehensive resource for creating and operating a successful Open Access (OA) journal. It is also available in a free abridged open access version; pdf is attached below.
Blog post from The Scholarly Kitchen: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/08/04/nuts-and-bolts-the-super-long-list-of-things-to-do-when-starting-a-new-journal/
Resources from Scholastica to support academic-led journal publishing
A cool poster on “How to start an open access journal”: http://hybridpublishing.org/files/2014/07/HOAJ-POSTER-final-web.pdf
A multi-part blog post on this topic that includes example emails to ask people to be on your editorial board, etc.: https://www.martineve.com/2012/07/10/starting-an-open-access-journal-a-step-by-step-guide-part-1/
Blog post: How much does it cost to run a small scholarly publisher?
Website of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA): http://oaspa.org/
Best practices document: Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), DOAJ, OASPA, and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
Link to the list of online journals that are hosted on the eScholarship@UMMS platform: http://escholarship.umassmed.edu/peer_review_list.html

Developing Open Access Journals (free abridged version) (PDF)
Solomon, DJ. Developing Open Access Journals: A practical guide. 2008. Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/. https://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/attachments/guide_to_developing_oa_journals.pdf.

Students and Open Educational Resources

R2RC Open Publishing Guide for Students (PDF)
Source: http://www.righttoresearch.org/bm~doc/r2rc_open_publishing_guide.pdf,
licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/.

The Right to Research Coalition (R2RC), a student organization formed in 2009 with nearly 7 million members, has published a student guide to open access publishing: “Optimize Your Publishing, Maximize Your Impact.” This resource presents students with the ways in which they can make their research openly available for the widest possible readership and lays out the benefits of doing so – both as authors and as readers. This is a great resource for student authors.

Also check out Three Things Students Can Do Now to Promote Open Access from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Read about the importance of Open Education in this factsheet from SPARC:

Source: https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Open-Education-Fact-Sheet_SPARC.11.10.pdf, licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/.

Resource List

Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides legal tools such as free, easy-to-use copyright licenses that authors can utilize for sharing their creative work.
Digital Commons Network
The Digital Commons Network brings together scholarship from hundreds of universities and colleges, providing open access to peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work. This constantly growing body of publications is curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, and represents thousands of disciplines and subject areas—from Architecture to Zoology.
Disciplinary Repositories
A list of open access disciplinary repositories (also called central or subject repositories). Most accept relevant deposits regardless of the author's institutional affiliation. Hosted by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College.
DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. It currently includes more than 1200 peer-reviewed books from over 30 publishers.
How to negotiate with publishers: an example of immediate self-archiving despite publisher’s embargo policy
Blog post 9 September 2015 by Pandelis Perakakis where he shares a recent experience as an example of how to negotiate with a publisher your right to make your research freely available without having to pay any money.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
International organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). It supports electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide. Provides a searchable Catalog containing more than 4 million records of electronic theses and dissertations.
Open Access Directory
A compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA), maintained by the OA community at large. Hosted by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College.
OpenDOAR - Directory of Open Access Repositories
An authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. As well as providing a simple repository list, OpenDOAR lets you search for repositories or search repository contents.
Registry of Open Access Repositories
Provides information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world. See also their ROARMAP: Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies website at http://roarmap.eprints.org/.
Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine
The Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine will help you generate a PDF form that you can attach to a journal publisher's copyright agreement to ensure that you retain certain rights.
SHERPA/RoMEO
SHERPA/RoMEO is a searchable database that presents a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement. Authors can use the database to help determine if they can deposit their manuscripst in an institutional repository such as eScholarship@UMMS.
SPARC®: the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.

Dramatic Growth of Open Access

The Dramatic Growth of Open Access Series is a quarterly series (end of March, June, September, and December) of key data illustrating the growth of open access, with additional comments and analysis. The series was founded and has been maintained since 2005 by Heather Morrison, an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Information Studies.