Open Access (OA) materials make their content free for everyone to read. Both journals and books may be published open access. Legitimate open-access journals follow the same standards for rigorous publishing that traditional subscription-based scholarly journals do.

Publishing open access increases the ability of everyone to view, cite, and share scholarly work. You do not need to be connected to a library to access open access manuscripts.

Models of Open Access

There are two main models for open access publishing: green open access and gold open access.

  • Green Open Access is offered by a subscription-based journal that grants the author rights to deposit their manuscript in an online repository like Northeastern University Library’s Digital Repository Service (DRS).
  • Gold Open Access makes the final version of the manuscript permanently available to everyone and is usually funded by Article Processing Charges (APCs).

Locating Open Access Materials

There are many ways to access open access materials. Here are some examples.

Open Access Directories

These index diverse open access resources.

Open Access Databases

These contain open access materials devoted to specific subjects.

  • arXiv: physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics
  • bioRxiv: biological sciences
  • medRxiv: health sciences
  • PubMed Central: biomedical and life sciences

Open Access Books

These sites contain open access books.

Use a Browser Plug-In

This browser extension allows you to access legal, author-posted manuscripts that are hosted on university and government web servers.

Search ScholarOne

You can use the Open Access filter on the ScholarOne results screen.

From the left side of the screen, select Filter My Results. Under Show Only, select Open Access, then Apply Filters. This will limit your search to only find materials that are available Open Access.

Filter My Results - select Open Access under Show Only

Publishing in an Open Access Journal

Northeastern University Library has agreements in place with a variety of publishers to support funding open access publishing. We can also help you choose an appropriate place to publish.

Avoid predatory publishers by checking the Directory of Open Access Journals and other resources to identify quality publications.

Remember, if you have any questions: ask a librarian.