FAQs. Frequently Asked Questions

What is Open Access?

“By ‘Open Access’ to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software and/or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.” (Budapest Declaration, 2002).

Open Access[1] may apply to any digital content whatsoever, from raw data to images, audio, videos, multimedia and computer programmes; it may be applied through digitally created works or digitised old works, including works in the public domain. It is beneficial to the interests of many groups: for example, it gives authors a worldwide audience and increases the impact of their works; it gives readers/users the chance to access contents without restrictions; it puts the privileged on a more or less equal playing ground as it eliminates the need to pay for reproducing contents and allows governments to promote democracy by sharing unclassified government information with the largest number of people possible.

Open Access is defined in three international foundational declarations: Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) i la Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003).

Many governments, institutions and other European and international bodies are preparing policies for Open Access to documents.

[1] Suber, Peter. Open Access Overview [en línia]. [Consulta: 29 de gener de 2016]. Disponible a: <//legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm>.