Samuelson Clinic Students co-author Authors Alliance Guide to Open Access

OAGuideUntil very recently, authors who wanted their works to be widely available had little choice but to submit their works to publishers who took assignments of the authors’ copyrights and exercised them according to a proprietary “all rights reserved” model. The advent of global digital networks now provides authors with exciting new options for communicating their ideas broadly.  One of these options is open access.

In fact, in recent years, open access opportunities have expanded, encompassing more communities of authors than ever before. The number and variety of open access repositories has grown, open access policies are becoming more common, and conventional publishers are increasingly willing accommodate authors’ open access goals.

Understanding Open Access: When, Why, & How To Make Your Work Openly Accessible, co-authored by clinic students Lexi Rubow ’15 and Rachael Shen ’16, helps authors determine whether open access is right for their works and, if so, how to make these works openly accessible. The guide is the second volume in a series of educational handbooks from non-profit Authors Alliance.

Understanding Open Access addresses common questions and concerns about open access and provides real-life strategies and tools that authors can use to work with publishers, institutions, and funders to make their works more widely accessible to all. The information in the guide is based on extensive interviews Rubow and Shen conducted with authors, publishers, and institutional representatives who shared their perspectives on open access options in today’s publishing environment.

Click here to read the guide.