Information

“Open Access" is defined as the free, unrestricted access to scholarly literature for everyone.

Open Access offers researchers a simple and broad dissemination of their research results:

• it facilitates scholarly exchange
• it increases the number of readers and citations
• it improves the reusability of the content.

To ensure that the results of publicly funded research are freely available, numerous funding bodies and institutions demand that publications of research results from funded projects must be made Open Access.

There are various ways of publishing Open Access:

• Gold and Hybrid Open Access
  The first publication of literature in Open Access media is referred to as “Gold Open Access”. A variation of Gold Open Access is the so-called hybrid way through which articles published in subscription-based journals can optionally be made freely available (Hybrid Open Access). (siehe Publishing)
• Green Open Access
  Green Open Access is defined as the secondary publication or self-archiving of scholarly literature on document servers (Open Access Repositories). (siehe Archiving)

Open Access is a pioneering development in scholarly publishing and offers a wide range of opportunities for both the scientific community and the public. However, some scientists are concerned of making their research results freely accessible online. The most important arguments for and reservations against Open Access can be found at Advantages and Concerns.