Open access (OA) refers to freely available, digital, online information. Open access scholarly literature is free of charge and often carries less restrictive copyright and licensing barriers than traditionally published works, for both the users and the authors.
While OA is a newer form of scholarly publishing, many OA journals comply with well-established peer-review processes and maintain high publishing standards. For more information, see Peter Suber's overview of Open Access.
Open in both cases means reducing cost to the user and making it easier to use and share knowledge.
Differences between OA and OER:
Open Access (OA) refers to removing barriers such as "paywalls". Open Access initiatives seek to make research articles and other works easy to find and read, for free. It does not address copyright, but rather the methods of funding and accessing the research or other works.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are works that copyright owners have "opened" by adding a Creative Commons or other License that removes some copyright restrictions. The ideal is to allow others to "retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute" without needing to ask for permission, as long as the work is attributed to the copyright owner, giving credit where it is due. Copyright owners can choose which copyright restrictions to remove by selecting the appropriate Creative Commons License.
The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement promotes the creation of "Open Access" works that are free to use. This includes promoting the use of high-quality textbooks that are free to students, reducing an important barrier for under-resourced students. This reduces the gap in access to knowledge between people of different economic circumstances.
The Open Access movement argues that users shouldn’t have to pay twice for access to the research supported by public funds. They call for free “public access to publicly funded research.”
Find articles, books, data, and other resources available for free.
Open access journals available through BioMed.
The Directory of Open Access Journals provides full text coverage of scientific, scholarly journals.
Over 80 million free scientific publications available.
Digital collections from the University of Georgia.
A free database of almost 10,000 journals. The articles themselves are not available on the database, so it is an identification resource.
InTech's byline, "Open Science Open Minds" introduces their platform, which provides open access to STEM books, chapters, and journals
A searchable resource providing tables of contents for over 17,000 scholarly journals (almost 3000 of which are open access)
PLoS (Public Library of Science)
A database of open access, peer reviewed journals in the sciences.
A free digital archive of biomedical and life science journal articles
Chong Goh, B. (n.d.). Molecular model of freshly made Rous sarcoma virus (RSV). The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Illustration. 3771. https://images.nigms.nih.gov/pages/DetailPage.aspx?imageid2=3771#
A freely accessible public repository of reviewed and annotated images, videos, and animations of cells from a variety of organisms, showcasing cell architecture, intracellular functionalities, and both normal and abnormal processes.
NIGMS offers scientific images and videos, plus scientist interviews, profiles, and photos.
From the US National Library of Medicine
This exhibit uses molecular illustration and animation to help describe the origins of life research and theories to broad audiences.
A collection of 74,522,719 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
Find communities of science related to your discipline.
"A global collaboration bringing together scientific societies, publishers, and libraries to provide access to critical, peer-reviewed research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences."
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.
DAVID, A Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery is a bioinformation database that provides gene specific data and promotes data sharing among scientists.
A searchable database of current publications by research faculty. Although the full texts of these publications are available through a subscription, the database may be searched free of charge.
"Our mission is to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research."
"Discover field-specific content, news, and opportunities across our journals in the select community hubs..."
"ResearchGate allows you to network with the largest global community dedicated to science and research: we help you to expand your contacts, share knowledge and find potential research partners."
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition provides access to papers, articles, blogs, newsletters, and news for research scientists.
Biodiversity (OpenStax)
Biological Sciences Grants Collections (Galileo Open Learning)
Biology (OpenStax)
Biology (BCCampus)
Concepts of Biology (OpenStax)
General Biology (Open Textbook Library)
Microbiology (OpenStax)
Microbiology for Allied Health Sciences (Galileo)
What is a preprint?
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset version available free, before or after a paper is published in a journal.
Explore and discover what your science colleagues are doing.
Sponsored by Cornell, this site provides eprints of quantitative research papers in many of the science disciplines.
"ASAPbio is a scientist-driven nonprofit working to promote innovation and transparency in the life sciences."
"bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research, and educational institution"
Scientists have created this network of information gleaned from websites and databases to create a database of e-prints.
"OSF is a free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration."
"Preprints is a multidisciplinary preprint platform that makes scientific manuscripts from all fields of research immediately available. It is a free, not-for-profit service supported by the open-access publisher MDPI."
Open access web site that offers a series of 12 interactive, inquiry-based biology simulations and exercises designed for college and AP high school biology students.
Activities that will teach you about traits of life, microscopy, math in science, research tools, genetics, and developmental biology.
The LifeDiscoveryEd Digital Library
An online resource portal for biology education in ecology, plant biology, and evolution.
VBL simulates natural environments with the way life responds to changing conditions.
The Virtual Biology Experiments
Rutgers University offers lab exercises in cell structure, cell reproduction, and chromosome structure, and meiosis. Students will work through the labs with step-by-step instructions.
Web Adventures From Rice University
This website offers interactive games that will teach students about the Scientific Method, Cholera, or the Pox Virus as if they were the scientist researching the disease.
XVIVOs award-winning animation studio creates compelling visual productions for pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotech companies, advertising agencies, educational organizations, museums, and broadcast companies.
