Open Access References
Professional scientific research is primarily published in high-cost, subscription-based resources that are typically only accessible to individuals directly associated with large academic institutions. For the independent amateur researcher and citizen scientist, there is a growing collection of open access resources where serious, peer-reviewed scientific work may be accessed for free.
So, dive right in…
- Public Library of Science :: http://www.plos.org
A non-profit publisher and advocacy organization committed to providing open-access scientific communication to advance progress in science and medicine. Open PLoS ONE or view the other PLoS Journals.
- arXiv.org
Maintained by Cornell University Library, arXiv is an open access resource to nearly 3/4 of a million e-prints in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics. New articles are submitted by the authors and are “pre-print” versions that have been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication consideration or are self-archived versions of previously published work.
- The National Academies Press :: http://www.nap.edu
The federal publishing branch presenting all reports from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. The printed versions of the reports are available for purchase, but downloadable PDF versions are all free of charge.
- SpringerOpen :: http://www.springeropen.com/journals
Springer is a major publisher of over 2,000 academic journals covering science, technology, and medicine and thousands of new books each year. The SpringerOpen division is focused on open access journals that are processed with their same high level of rapid and thorough peer review.
- BioMed Central :: http://www.biomedcentral.com/journals/bysubject
A partner site with Springer, BioMed Central is a large collection of open access journals focused on the biological and medical sciences.
- PubMed Central :: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals
An open-access digital library of over two million published journal articles housed at the United States National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).
- WebmedCentral :: http://www.webmedcentral.com
Publishes biomedical articles without prior peer review in a climate of post publication peer review led by authors, but supported by at team of advisers and editors.
- Physical Review X :: http://prx.aps.org
From the American Physical Society, publishers of the prestigious Physical Review Letters, comes PRX their newest journal, entirely open access and peer reviewed, and committed to excellence covering pure, applied and interdisciplinary physics.
- New Journal of Physics :: http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630
From the Institute of Physics, this open access journal covers the entire range of physics including interdisciplinary topics with physics at the core. the IOP publishes a large number of scientific journals, 34 of which currently have full open access or “hybrid” open access, where some of the articles are made available if the author elects to pay a fee. The fully open access titles include Advances in Natural Sciences: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Environmental Research Letters, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, and Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.
- Optics Express :: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe
Published from The Optical Society (OSA), whose goal is to advance the science and technology of light, this open access peer-reviewed journal rapidly reports on the latest developments in optics and photonics.
- Elsevier Delayed Access Journals :: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/delayedaccess
A major global scientific and health information publisher, Elsevier produces about 2,000 journals and 20,000 books and reference works. Although none of their current publications are open access, they do maintain a short list of important journals, mostly in biological and health sciences, that become open after 12 months.
- F1000 Research ::http://f1000.com
Coming later in 2012, F1000 will offer an open scientific publishing system that allows for the presentation of research with a variety of formats, including traditionally written articles, poster presentations, graphs and charts, and even raw data. An open, post-publication peer review process will allow for vetting of the work and revisions by the publishing author will be encourages and facilitated.
- Directory of Open Access Journals :: http://www.doaj.org
Browse through listings of the available OA journals by subject and discover your new favorite research reference in the field of your choice.
- The Registry of Open Access Repositories :: http://roar.eprints.org
A searchable database providing timely information about the growth and status of OA repositories around the world.
- The OAIster (Open Archives Initiative) Database :: http://oaister.worldcat.org
A searchable database for millions of records from thousands of contributors that are all open access. Archived results include journal articles, electronic books, audio, video and photographic files, theses, and more, and it’s all open access.
- CiteSeerx :: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu
A searchable archive covering scientific literature from the computer and information science fields. Hosted by Penn State and currently sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
- Academia.edu
A specialized social network for researchers to freely distribute their published work to other members. It also provides detailed tracking statistics about views of listed materials. Over 1 million academics are involved in the platform with over 1.1 million papers listed for distribution. Non-academic accounts are allowed, as users may either be affiliated as an alumni from an institution or as an independent researcher.