The Collective Response
What is being done?
One response to the scholarly communication crisis is the Open Access (OA) Movement. In its purest form, Open Access publishing provides immediate, free public access to scholarly publications on the Internet, whether in the form of open access journals or through some form of archiving. What makes it possible is the Internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. For the past several years, open access publishing initiatives have been proposed to increase the visibility of scholarly output. See Peter Suber's Open Access Overview for an historical perspective and more information about the initiative.
OA is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major OA initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature insist on its importance. Just as authors of journal articles donate their labor, so do most journal editors and referees participating in peer review. OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature. The importance is not a cost-less system, but a better way to make research available with as few barriers to this information as possible.
| Self-Archiving | Open Access Publishing | |
|---|---|---|
| Institutional Repositories Disciplinary Repositories |
Self-Archiving
- Institutional repositories:
Institutional repositories capture the digital-born intellectual output of an academic institution in support of its teaching and research missions. For more information about Georgia Tech's IR visit SMARTech (Scholarly Materials and Research at Tech).
Examples of content typically ingested in IRs include:
Annual Reports, Computers Programs, Conference Papers, Data Sets, Learning/Complex Objects, Models, Pre-Prints/Post-Prints, Proceedings, Research Reports, Simulations, Technical Reports, Web Pages, White Papers and Working Papers
Examples:
- Disciplinary repositories
Examples:
arXiv.org (Physics)
Open Access Publishing
- Open Access Journals:
Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology, published by the International Association of IT Lawyers (IAITL)
Carbon Balance and Management, published by BioMed Central
Electronic Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, published by World Wide Web of Geotechnical Engineers
Electronic Journal of Boundary Elements, published by Scholarly Communication Center, Rutgers University
Journal of Educational Technology & Society, published by IEEE Computer Society
Digital Journal of Opthalmology, Massachussetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School
IETF Journal (Internet Engineering Task Force), published by the Internet Society
Information Technologies and International Development (ITID), published by MIT Press
Library-hosted Open Access Journals:
Southern Spaces, Digital Library Research Initiative, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University
Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, Digital Library Research Initiative, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University
CTheory Multimedia, published by Cornell University Library - Open Access Publishers:
PLoS
Pub Med Central
Bio Med Central - Open Access Directories:
ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories)
OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
SPARC: List of Institutional Repositories
SPARC EUROPE: Institutional Repository Initiatives in Europe
NDLTD (Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations)