LibGuides: Department of Health and Social Services Library: Open Access Health Research

What is Open Access?

Open access (OA) refers to freely available, digital, online information. Open access scholarly literature is free of charge and often carries less restrictive copyright and licensing barriers than traditionally published works, for both the users and the authors.

While OA is a newer form of scholarly publishing, many OA journals comply with well-established peer-review processes and maintain high publishing standards.

Open Access Defined

Open Access Publishing: What is Open Access
Cornell University Library provides great resources defining Open Access

University of South Carolina Open Access: Predatory Publishers
In this guide, learn about discovering freely available research and find ways to make your work open access.
Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ's mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language. DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent. All funding is via donations, 40% of which comes from sponsors and 60% from members and publisher members. All DOAJ services are free of charge including being indexed in DOAJ. All data is freely available.
Directory of Open Access Books
The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access and should contain as many books as possible, provided that these publications are in Open Access and meet academic standards.

Open Health Research

BMC - Biomed Central
BMC has an evolving portfolio of some 300 peer-reviewed journals, sharing discoveries from research communities in science, technology, engineering and medicine. BMC is part of Springer Nature, providing a greater opportunities to help authors everywhere make more connections with research communities across the world.
PUBMED
A service of the US National Library of Medicine which is part of the National Institute of Health .PubMed comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
Trip Database
Trip is a clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care. Trip has been online since 1997 and in that time has developed into the internet’s premier source of evidence-based content. Our motto is ‘Find evidence fast’ and this is something we aim to deliver for every single search.

Journals and Publishers

BMJ Open
BMJ publish more than 70 medical and allied science journals. Nearly half of our indexed journals rank within the top 10 of their category, and we are well renowned for publishing The BMJ - one of the world’s most cited general medical journals with an impact factor of 23.562. BMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas
Elsevier - Science Direct Open Access
Elsevier, the modern publishing business, was founded in 1880.Science Direct is a leading platform of peer-reviewed literature that helps you move your research forward
Sage Publishing- Pure Gold Open Access
All articles published in the journals provide worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on publication under a creative commons license. All articles are rigorously peer-reviewed retaining the quality hallmarks of the academic publishing process
Springer Publisher - Springer Open
The SpringerOpen portfolio has grown tremendously since its launch in 2010. It offers resources for researchers from all areas of science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences. The works freely available online for everyone, immediately upon publication, and are subject to their high-level peer-review and production processes.
Wiley Publishing - Wiley Online
Our online scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, books, and other digital content build on a 200-year heritage of quality publishing.Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines. Wiley Open Access journals are supported by a network of authoritative journals and societies as well as internationally renowned editorial board members. All research articles published in Wiley Open Access journals are immediately freely available to read, download and share. Wiley Open Access publishes a number of online journals across biological, chemical and health sciences.