The theme for Open Access Week, October 19-25, is “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.”
Open Access allows for the unrestricted sharing of scholarly research and offers an alternative to a traditional subscription model that is costly and hidden behind a paywall. It has the potential to greatly accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, as evidenced by many leading journals making content publicly available in order to aid in the race to produce a Covid 19 vaccine.
Work produced by Connecticut College faculty can be hosted on our institutional repository, Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. Licensing agreements with publishers can include language that ensures that journal articles are allowed to be shared on Digital Commons. For more information see the College’s Open Access webpage and FAQs.
If you are interested in submitting your work to an open access journal, these open access publishing websites provide resources and support for open scholarship:
If you are planning to publish an open access book, browse the Open Access Books Toolkit created by OAPEN, an online library and publication platform supporting open access publishing. The Toolkit covers specific topics related to open access books including peer review and contracts. If you still have questions about OA, explore the Common Myths About Open Access page.
For help choosing the right open journal or book publishing platform for your open content, use
Think. Check. Submit., an initiative jointly supported by OASPA, DOAJ and other open scholarship organizations.
Think. Check. Submit for journals provides a series of questions to help you find the right open access journal for your research.
Think. Check. Submit for books and book chapters provides a checklist to help you find a trusted monograph publisher for your work.
Openly publishing your book or journal article holds a number of benefits. Open access increases the possibility that your work will be read widely and have an impact on the world.

By MikeAMorrison – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71278711