Why should I put my research on Open Access?

Open Access is not just about benefitting the general public, there are clear benefits to individual researchers and their institutions:

  • Increased visibility of research/researchers.
  • Impact: OA research cited more frequently.
  • Research lifecycle can be accelerated: published, read, cited, built on.
  • Compliance with funder mandates.
  • Facilitating collaboration, sharing and knowledge exchange.
  • Public good: sharing scholarship and intellectual wealth.

It is obvious that research that is openly and freely available will be found more easily through, for example, Google, Google Scholar, specialist search engines such as BASE, and harvesters that trawl the web aggregating related content.

A number of recent studies have clearly demonstrated that putting research on OA increases the number of times it is cited. Additionally, the research lifecycle may be speeded up – it is quicker to get research out there and noticed and it can make collaborating and sharing easier.