Open Access
Open Access is free access to scholarly publications available online without financial barriers or technical restrictions. Publications deemed to be openly accessible may be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed or searched by anyone, links may be made to full versions of the texts, and they may be used for any other lawful purpose. Authors of publications retain the right to attribution and proper citation.
The Open Access Movement is a collaborative effort led by scientists and librarians, with the objective of providing unrestricted access to digital scientific publications via the Internet. Its primary goals include mitigating the issue of double-funding (where scientific research, often funded by the public, necessitates payment for access to the research results in the form of publications from the same sources) and enhancing the dissemination of scientific knowledge, ultimately elevating the influence of research publications.
Breakdown by copyright:
Due to copyright and reuse of the text, we can divide open access into:
- "Gratis Open Access" involves providing a work for free in compliance with fair use regulations (e.g., allowing quoting of the work but prohibiting the creation or distribution of derivative works). "Gratis open access" is implemented by posting the work in full text on a website (e.g. a scientific journal website, a scientific repository). Information on open repositories can be found in the 'Directory of Open Access Repositories' (OpenDOAR) and the 'Registry of Open Access Repositories' (ROAR).
- "Libre Open Access" represents free access to content with reuse rights. It functions through the use of 'Creative Commons' (CC) licences, e.g. a work can be quoted and dependent works can be created and distributed if this is compatible with the CC licence used. In order to implement Libre Open Access, one of the two free CC licences must be indicated: the CC-BY licence or the CC-BY-SA licence (the other CC licences are not free, they only provide free open access).
- "Green route" - allows authors of papers to make their work available in publicly accessible institutional or domain repositories. Authors can provide both postprints (peer-reviewed texts) or preprints (texts before review) and final versions published in the journal (with the publisher's permission). The repositories use non-exclusive or 'Creative Commons' licences. A non-exclusive license provides the author with flexibility when they wish to transfer their work to another party. The idea behind the 'Creative Commons' licence is to reserve only certain rights and thus allow the author a more flexible scope of protection for the work.
- "Gold route" - involves publishing in peer-reviewed journals published according to open access requirements. Some journals use a hybrid model in which individual articles whose authors pay a fee are published in open access. The 'SHERPA/RoMEO' and 'Directory of Open Access Journals' portals provide an overview of the copyright policies of publishers of specific journal titles.
Breakdown by mode of sharing:
In terms of how publications are shared, we distinguish between two routes of open access:
We encourage you to read the following resources on Open Access:
Open Science - https://otwartanauka.pl/
Open access to scientific publications - https://www.gov.pl/web/edukacja-i-nauka/otwarty-dostep-do-publikacji-naukowych
Open access - Platform for Polish scientific publications - https://pppn.icm.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Broszura-dla-naukowców_DL_01.10.pdf
Coalition for Open Education - https://koed.org.pl/pl/
Open Science Platform - https://www.facebook.com/PlatformaOtwartejNauki
Unleash Science - https://uwolnijnauke.pl/