Open access refers to the publication of research outputs such as journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters, theses, and reports that are freely available online to everyone. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full-text, or use open access materials for any other lawful purpose.

Research outputs that are open access and made available through disciplinary or institutional repositories are far likelier to receive more diverse citations through a broader and more diverse readership than through traditional publisher platforms (Huang et al., 2024).
 

Reference

Huang, C.-K., Neylon, C., Montgomery, L., Hosking, R., Diprose, J. P., Handcock, R. N., & Wilson, K. (2024). Open access research outputs receive more diverse citations. Scientometrics, 129(2), 825–845. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04894-0

Benefits of open access

• Increase the visibility of your research by reaching a wider audience.
• Greater potential for societal impact and engagement. 
• Increase your research impact through higher citation rates. 
• Compliance with funder mandates such as ARC and NHMRC policies. 
• Provide public access to publicly funded research. 
• Maximise your researcher and institutional profile.

Open Access Explained! (8:23 mins) by Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Commonly used terms

• Open access refers to scholarly research outputs such as journal articles that are freely available online for everyone to access. 
• Open education is part of the broader open scholarship ecosystem, where educators seek to promote the implementation of open policies, practices, and resources in education. 
• Open educational resources (OER) are openly licensed teaching materials that are often used for instructional purposes. They can be freely used to share with others or repurposed to suit user needs.  
• Open research covers the entire research cycle, not just open access publishing and extends to all disciplines and types of research.
• Open scholarship is a broad term used to encompass all forms of 'openness' in the teaching and research environment. 

Similarities and differences

Open access publications and open educational resources have fundamental common features that include:

• Free to access, without cost.
• Without restrictions such as passwords or login credentials.
• Online but may also be analogue.

The differences lie in their purpose and types of materials, and consequently the kinds of permissions allowed for use and reuse.

RMIT research output citation data from 2020-2023 shows on average an increase when published in open access journals.

Image: Copyright © RMIT University, data sourced from SciVal and Altmetric Explorer.