What is open access?
Open access refers to unrestricted online access to any form of creative work or scholarship. Work that is available open access is freely available online to anyone in the world with an internet connection and a web browser.
Where can I learn more about the open access movement?
Contact your subject librarian who can arrange for someone to discuss this topic with you individually or with your department or unit. There are also excellent educational materials about open access available through the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Consortium (SPARC) website, as well as through other sites active in promoting open access, including:
Will open access increase faculty vulnerability to piracy of scholar’s intellectual property? Will it enable plagiarism?
The open access version of a scholarly article is protected by the author's copyright. All of the rights and duties that exist for a traditional scholarly article publication remain in effect for the open access version, including the ability to prosecute cases of piracy or plagiarism.
Will Open Access to my articles adversely affect a publisher’s circulation and/or advertising revenue?
We all know that professional societies want to serve their membership with high-quality information; they need to stay financially afloat to do that. Allowing you to contribute a version of your article to UT Arlington's open access repository does not have to compete with this goal. Many professional societies and publishers allow deposit of an article after an embargo period during which the published version is the only one available. The library will honor any embargo periods requested by faculty. When the embargo is lifted, the article is made freely available online.
Does UT Arlington have an open access policy?
The short answer is no, and although no official policy exists, the UT Arlington Libraries encourages all faculty to publish their scholarly work in an Open Access repository.
