Access is how, when, and where people are able to read the published work. "How Open is It?" by SPARC, PLOS, and OASPA explains how a publication being open or closed impacts the rights of readers, authors, and those looking to reuse work, as well as provides terminology to help you choose and identify publications with the level of access you desire.
| Access | Reader Rights | Reuse Rights | Copyrights | Author Posting Rights | Automatic Posting | Machine Readability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open | Free readership rights to all articles immediately upon publication | Generous reuse & remixing rights (e.g., CC BY license) | Author holds copyright with no restrictions | Author may post any version to any repository or website with no delay | Journals make copies of all articles automatically available in trusted third-party repositories (e.g.,PubMed Central, OpenAire, institutional) immediately upon publication | Article full text, metadata, supporting data (including format and semantic markup) & citations may be accessed via API, with instructions publicly posted |
| Less Open | Free readership rights to all articles after an of no more than 6 months |
Reuse, remixing, & further building upon the work subject to certain restrictions & conditions (e.g., CC BY-NC & CC BY-SA licenses) |
Author retains/publisher grants broad rights, including author reuse (e.g., of fi gures in presentations/teaching, creation of derivatives) and authorization rights (for others to use) | Author may post some version (determined by publisher) to any repository or website with no delay |
Journals make copies of all articles automatically available in trusted third-party repositories (e.g., PubMed Central, OpenAire, institutional) within 6 months | Article full text, metadata, & citations may be accessed via API, with instructions publicly posted |
| Middle Ground | Free readership rights to all articles after an greater than 6 months |
Reuse (no remixing or further building upon the work) subject to certain restrictions and conditions (e.g., CC BY-ND license) | *empty cell* | Author may post some version (determined by publisher) to any repository or website with some delay (determined by the publisher) |
Journals make copies of all articles automatically available in trusted third-party repositories (e.g., PubMed Central, OpenAire, institutional) within 12 months | Article full text, metadata, & citations may be crawled without special permission or registration, with instructions publicly posted |
| Less Closed | Free and immediate readership rights to some, but not all, articles (including “hybrid” models) | Some reuse rights beyond fair use for some, but not all, articles (including “hybrid models”) |
Author retains/publisher grants limited rights for author reuse (e.g., of figures in presentations/teaching, creation of derivatives) | Author may post some version (determined by publisher) to certain repositories or websites, with or without delays |
Journals make copies of some, but not all, articles automatically available in trusted third-party repositories (e.g., PubMed Central, OpenAire, institutional) within 12 months |
Article full text, metadata, & citations may be crawled with permission, with instructions publicly posted |
| Closed | Subscription, membership, pay-per-view, or other fees required to read all articles | No reuse rights beyond fair use/dealing or other limitations or exceptions to copyright (All Rights Reserved) |
Publisher holds copyright, with no author reuse beyond fair use |
Author may not deposit any versions to any repositories or websites at any time | No automatic posting in third-party repositories |
No full text articles available for crawling |