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What is Open Access?

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Open Access (OA) refers to the publishing practice of making content provided by contributors/authors/creators freely available to users and readers. Some publishers levy Article Processing Charges (APCs) on authors to make their article available via OA in a journal.

Open Access means that scientific discoveries and information are made available to the public without paying for a subscription or individual article. Government departments, universities, and other institutions leverage OA in order to share information and research without barriers to access.

 

Types of Open Access:

There are different models of OA among scientific journal publishers. These are the most common:

  • Diamond Open Access: Journals do not levy APCs or charge for subscriptions or article access.

  • Gold Open Access: All published articles are publicly available at no cost.

  • Hybrid Open Access: A blend of full-access and closed-access articles made available through a publisher’s suite of journals (this is the method available in the new Springer Transformative Agreement).

  • Green Open Access: Articles are posted by an author on their institution’s website or third-party not-for-profit website, at no cost to either the public or the author.

For more information, see the flyer on Open Access, from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).

 

How the Health Library (HC/PHAC) is supporting Open Access:

  • Our new Springer Transformative Agreement includes more than 2,000 hybrid journals across the Springer Nature portfolio (Springer, Adis, Palgrave and Academic Journals). HC and PHAC authors will be able to publish a predetermined number of OA articles with no APCs during a subscription year.

  • BioMED Central (a Springer company) offers a 15% discount on APCs to HC and PHAC authors wishing to publish their OA articles in this publisher’s suite of journals.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the Health Library.

 

Download a printable PDF version of this FAQ.

 

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