What is Open Access?
In the last few years the scientific community has started discussing how scientic communication can evolve. A lot of people claim that the emergence of the Internet and the Web can improve the communication between scientists and scholars. The idea behind Open Access is that scientific communication should be free. Open Access means that the reader has free access to research results on the Internet. He or she should be able to read, cite, download and print scientific articles, without any cost to him-/herself.
"Open Access (OA) means immediate, permanent, free online access to the full text of all refereed research journal articles" is a statement made at the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities
. Signatories of the declaration in Sweden include The Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF), the Swedish Research Council, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the National Library of Sweden.
There are two ways of making your publications Open Access, through Open Access journals or by self-archiving in DiVA, the open digital archive of the university.
The Advantages of Open Access with Professor Martin Hofmann-Apitius, University of Bonn, Germany (0:56)