Open Access, a breakthrough for science that every neuroscientist should know about

Open Access is the online access to scientific journal literature, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open Access was named one of the top science news stories of 2003 by Nature, Science, The Scientist, and The Wall Street Journal. Open Access is supported by major science funding bodies, such as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA), the Wellcome trust (UK), the Max Planck Society, the DFG (Germany), the CNRS and INSERM (France). Rapidly rising conventional journal prices have been denounced by leading research universities (Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Duke, more), found dysfunctional/unsustainable by independent financial analysts (PNB Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse), and are now under investigation by Science and Technology Committee of the United Kingdom House of Commons. The advantages of an Open Access journal are compelling: articles are accessible to everyone with an internet connection; authors reach larger audiences and have greater impact; no permission is needed for copying, printing, distributing, storing or other educational uses; copyright remains with authors. Open Access does not violate copyright, but uses the consent of the copyright holder. Open Access journals are peer-reviewed and use the same high standards (ex. WAME) as conventional journals. Open Access journals are indexed in major databases (ex. National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine PubMed; ISI Science Citation Index) and major search engines (Google, Yahoo). Open Access journals may deposit copies of their articles in central archives (ex. PubMed Central), enhancing their preservation/availability. There are different funding models for Open Access journals in different circumstances; their costs are usually paid by the same sources that fund research. Of a thousand Open Access Journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) many have no publication charge. Some journals are entirely Open Access (ex. PLoS Biology), and some conventional journals are experimenting with Open Access (ex. PNAS). Scientists who publish in conventional journals can provide Open Access to the same articles by depositing them in Open Access archives. Open Access accelerates research, shares knowledge, improves the usefulness of science journals articles. Wider adoption of Open Access depends on educating the scientific community about its benefits