Benefits of Open Access
Open access offers many benefits to authors, readers, and researchers. Because of its immediate and free availability, open access accelerates the discovery of research, enriches the public, and can help improve education–for everyone.
The following infographic illustrates more benefits of open access, specifically for authors who are publishing and sharing their work through open access. These benefits include:
- More exposure for your work
- Practitioners can apply your findings
- Higher citation rates
- Your research can influence policy
- The public can access your findings
- Compliance with grant requirements
- Taxpayers get value for their money (many research projects are funded with tax dollars)
- Researchers in developing countries can see your work
Machine Readable PDF of Open Access Benefits Infographic
One benefit that is worth special consideration is the likelihood for higher citation rates. Research shows that scholarship is more likely to be cited when it is discoverable and visible. Because open access scholarship is more likely to be discoverable and visible than closed access scholarship, it is more likely to receive higher citation rates. This phenomenon is called the Open Access Citation Advantage. Want to read more about the open access citation advantage? Check out these links:
Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J., & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6, e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375
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