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Open Access @ Pitt: Scholars and OA

This guide contains resources for scholars who want to make their work open.

I ran into a paywall! What can I do?

If you've run into a paywall and can't access the article you need, there are many resources available to you. 

 

Try our Search Bar below, powered by the Open Access Button. This tool also provides a browser extension for Chrome and a web interface. If the Button can't find your article freely available, it will send a request to the author on your behalf. 

 

 

 

Unpaywall LogoFor quick access to open access versions of paywalled articles, try the Unpaywall browser extension for Chrome. Unpaywall alerts you when there is a freely available version of the article available from repositories, preprint archives, or scholarly websites.  

 

 

The scholar's role in OA

What can faculty members, professors, scholars, and researchers do to support OA?

Quite a lot actually.

Are you a journal editor considering taking your journal Open Access? Read more about the practicalities of flipping a journal OA with the Declaring Independence guide from SPARC. 

The Right to Research Coalition recommends you also consider

  • Submitting your research to Open Access journals in your field
  • Depositing your preprints and postprints in an Open Access archive (like D-Scholarship@Pitt) or one in your specialization
  • Retaining your copyrights (such as self-archiving) when you sign publishing agreements
  • Launching an OA journal in your area of specialization
  • Serving as an editor of an OA journal
  • Serving as a peer reviewer for an OA journal
  • Educating your scholarly socieities and professional organizations about Open Access

Need more ideas?

  • Talk with your colleagues and students about Open Access and what it can mean to their scholarly research and careers; encourage them to place their work in Open Access repositories or to publish in Open Access journals
  • Consider signing the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which advocates for looking beyond Journal Impact Factors in assessing scholarship
  • Create or use Open Educational Resources (e.g., learning objects, textbooks) in your teaching
  • Deposit your work in D-Scholarship@Pitt, Pitt's Open Access institutional repository
  • Create an Open Access subject repository for your specialization
  • Use Pitt's Open Access Author Fee Fund to help offset the cost of publishing in in an OA journal
  • Ask granting agencies for funds to support article processing charges for OA journals
  • Deposit your data in an OA repository
  • Read your publishing agreements carefully and know which rights you want to keep
  • Apply Creative Commons licensing to your scholarship so that others can easily share and reuse your works (while still giving you credit and allowing you to retain ownership of your work)
  • Consider declining (and explaining why) when asked to referee a paper or serve on the editorial board for a toll-access journal
  • Start the OA conversation with a toll-access journal
  • Participate in Open Access Week events at Pitt