In the ever-changing landscape of academic research, openness is essential for transparency and collaboration. However, it’s important to understand that not all approaches to openness are the same.
What is open access?
Open access (OA) is a practice that provides immediate, permanent, and free access to scholarly research published online so that anyone, anywhere, can read and build upon research.
This means that anyone can not only read, but also download, copy, distribute, print, search for, and search within that output. Open access material can be reused under the terms and conditions of its specific license. Unlike the traditional ‘pay to read’ publishing model, the open access model allows readers to access scholarly information without having to pay a subscription fee. Instead, when an author chooses to publish an article open access, they may be required to pay an article processing charge (APC), or they may be eligible to publish open access with no author-facing fees, depending on the type of open access publication they choose to publish with, and the conditions of their funding.
Why open access?
The primary goal of open access is to ensure research discoveries are widely accessible and can be built upon to drive real change in the world.
Research advancement leads to improved quality of life, more efficient treatments, new industries, and solutions to challenges like the COVID- 19 pandemic and climate change. The more people who can read and build upon the latest research, the more likely we are to benefit as a society.
Yet, research breakthroughs are often hampered by technical, legal, and financial barriers, including paywalls. This prevents the timely use of valuable new research findings because many cannot access them.
This is where open access makes a difference. By reducing barriers, expanding access, and promoting innovation, open access accelerates research and helps solve societal issues.
Despite its benefits, open access has limitations in terms of openness, and open research provides a suitable alternative.
Differences between open access and open research
Open research goes beyond open access. To publish your research openly and reach a wider readership, it’s important to understand all aspects of openness.
Open research is a set of principles and practices that prioritize openness, transparency, and collaboration across the entire research cycle, whereas open access focuses only on the primary output, for example, a research article.
In many STEM disciplines, open research is often referred to as ‘open science’. Open research is inclusive of the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Arguably, research in any discipline can achieve its maximum potential impact when it is disseminated as widely as possible.
As an advocate of open research, Open Research Europe believes that all research outputs should be freely available and reusable to support transparency, reproducibility and equal access to knowledge. This includes the final research article and the underlying data, methods, software, and code.
How to achieve an open research approach
There are many approaches to adopt an open research approach. These include:
Making data freely available for all readers
Open data is data that is available for everyone to access, reuse, and share. For researchers, this refers to any datasets collected or created as part of your research project. Your research data is the evidence that underpins your findings and can be used to validate the claims made in your publication. By making this available, others can build upon your findings, acknowledge your work, and even offer opportunities for collaboration and furthering your work.
Using an open peer review model
Open peer review enables transparency and accountability in the peer review process. It typically involves making certain aspects of the peer review process publicly available, either before or after publication. These aspects may include:
- Open reports: Peer review reports are published for anyone to read.
- Open identities: Author and/or reviewer identities are shared publicly.
- Open participation: The wider research community are given a forum to comment on the research.
Openness in research is essential for advancing knowledge and driving innovation. Understanding the spectrum of openness, from open access to open research, is crucial for navigating academic research and communication.
