OA, OA self-archiving, OA publishing, and data archiving

OVERVIEW: Open Access (OA) means free online access to the 2.5 million articles published every year in the world's 25,000 peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific research journals. OA can be provided in two ways: To provide "Green OA," authors self-archive the final refereed drafts of their articles in their institutional OA repositories immediately upon acceptance for publication (by conventional, non-OA journals). To provide "Gold OA," authors publish their articles in OA journals that make all their articles free online immediately upon publication. (Sometimes a fee is charged to the author's institution for Gold OA.) Because of the benefits of OA (in terms of maximized visibility, accessibility, uptake, usage and impact) to research, researchers, their institutions and the taxpayers that fund them, institutions and funders worldwide are increasingly mandating (i.e. requiring) Green OA self-archiving. Gold OA publishing cannot be mandated by authors' institutions and funders, but universal Green OA self-archiving mandates may eventually lead to a global transition to Gold OA publishing; it depends on whether and how long subscriptions remain sustainable as the means of covering the costs of print and online publication; if subscriptions become unsustainable, authors' institutions will pay journal publishers for peer review out of a portion of their annual windfall subscription cancellation savings. Data-archiving cannot be mandated, because researchers must be allowed the exclusive right to mine the data they have collected if they wish; but as Green OA self-archiving grows, data-archiving too will grow, because of their natural complementarity and the power of global collaboration to accelerate and enhance research progress.

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