Open Access Without Tears

Posted On: October 19, 2015

Is there a way to do good, respected research and still make it available to anyone in the world who wants to read it?
Actually, yes, in many cases. And it’s not necessarily that hard, though it does add extra steps and can require a bit of research up front.

Earlier this month, librarian Barbara Fister wrote a great article on ways to make your scholarship more open to researchers who don’t have the level of access that UC/UCSD affiliates have through our large number of journal licenses.
Including:

  • Tips on finding good open access journal publishers***
  • Self-archiving a copy of your article (often the final accepted manuscript) in a university’s institutional repository
    • For UCSD that would be eScholarship, and shortly we will have a mechanism in place that will make this process even easier. As your new articles are identified through searches in various databases, you’ll be prompted to “claim” them if they are indeed yours and then upload a copy or link out if the article is already open access elsewhere.
  • Potential OA options for book publishing, and even some ways to share and publicize even if the book itself isn’t OA.

*** For some publishers, article processing charge discounts–and in come cases, full waivers–are available to UCSD authors.