General information on Open Access

• What is Open Access? provides overview, definitions and basic concepts in open access .
• Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS) aims to provide an authoritative ‘sourcebook’ on open access, covering the concepts, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving it. The sourcebook categories resources by audience, for example information for librarians, researchers and students. The site also highlights developments and initiatives from around the world, with links to diverse additional resources and case studies.
• Open Access Directory (OAD) brings many open access related lists together under one place, browsing by categories and also searching through the search box is possible.
• Open Access Overview. This is an introduction to open access (OA) for those who are new to the concept and provides useful key definitions.
• Open Access Book. This book is written by Peter Suber and some parts are available for download while others will be made available in 2013.

Open Access Declarations

• Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) arose from a conference convened in Budapest by the Open Society Initiative on December 1-2 to promote open access. It is considered a historic and defining for the open access Movement.
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) arose from the conference of open access hosted by Max Planck Society in Berlin, 2003 where organisations committing to open access or open knowledge would sign the declaration.
• Bethesda Statement On Open Access Publishing (BOAI) (2003) builds upon BOAI by saying users will enact open access, clearly defines open access publications and that established "open access" as the term to describe initiatives to make information more widely and easily available.

Advocacy and Policy

• UNESCO Policy Guidelines for the development and promotion of open access demystifies the concept of OA and provide concrete steps on putting relevant policies in place. It also seeks to provide capacity in advocacy and adoption of OA policies.
• Open Access Policies Kit – Repositorio Cientifico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP) project created an Open Access Policies Kit, where institutions interested in promoting the success of their repositories and visibility of its scientific activity may find implementation plans and policy models for open access.
• Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP) provides mandates from different institutions, the following types of mandates are listed, Thesis mandates, Funder mandates, Multi-institutional mandates, Sub-institutional mandates and Institutional mandates.
• CARL Open Access Advocacy Toolkit.The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Open Access Advocacy Toolkit provides general resources on OA, resources for researchers, students, and policy makers.The resource is useful for those engaged in OA advocacy in academic institutions.
• What you can do to promote Open Access? This is a comprehensive list that provides information managers with tips on promoting OA within their institutions.

Copyright

• Copyright and authors' rights: A Briefing Paper explains in simple terms what copyrights and authors’ rights are.
• Copyright and related issues from the University of Witwatersrand includes additional resources and toolkits on open access and copyright.
• Advocacy 'Know Your Rights' Toolkit aims at administrators and advocates of open access self archiving, provides advocacy strategies, communication plans, strategies in dealing with publishers.
• SHERPA/RoMEO Publisher copyright policies and self-archiving hosts publisher’s policies that endorse self archiving by authors.
• Copyright and Licensing Toolkit aims at higher education stakeholders who are working with Open Educational Resources (OER) and the toolkit details definitions, creative commons licences, and copyright clearances.
• Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe (OpenAIRE) is a project to facilitate access to the entire open access scientific production of the European Research Area, providing cross-links from publications to data and funding schemes. It lists background information on open access, policies and mandates and reviews the open access works in individual European countries.
• Scholar’s Copyright Project develops legal tools and resources for expanding and enhancing open access to published research and data to scientists. Scholar’s Copyright project offers the Creative Commons copyright regimes. Scholar’s Copyright Project is part of Science Commons - overseen by members of the Creative Commons board.
• Copyright Toolbox.Provides a simplified explanation to copyright agreements for authors and other organisations or academic institutes intending to maximise access to scholarly publications.

Open Access Repositories

• What are Institutional Repositories? summarises what institutional repositories are and basic information about their content use and sustainability issues.
• Institutional Repositories: Business Issues for Institutional Managers details financial and other associated costs for setting up institutional repositories.
• Institutional Repositories for Research Management and Assessment describes how a repository can be integrated into the organisation’s research process.
• Open Access repository: Capacity Strengthening Programme (OA-IRCSP) aims to stimulate and strengthen the capacity of establishing intellectual output repositories based on open access principles among African universities. It has developed an institutional repository toolkit and also training modules.
• JISC Digital Repositories Info Toolkit outlines guidelines for setting up and running digital repositories and covers essential elements in setting up a repository including both management and technical issues.
• Repository66.org Repository Maps allows a world visualisation of repositories and these can be view by geographical location or they can be filtered by repository type, software type and also through time frames.

Open Repository Directories

• Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) is the directory of academic open access repositories.
• Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) lists open repositories. It is  hosted by the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
• The CIARD R.I.N.G is a global registry of web-based services that give access to any kind of information pertaining to agricultural research for development (ARD).

Open Access Journals

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is the largest directory of open access journals with a goal to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals by exposing in a single portal a comprehensive list of all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system.
• Online guide to Open Access Journals Publishing provides practical information and tools to support the efforts of scholars and other small teams producing independent Open Access journals.
• Open Access Journals Business Guides has guidelines for turning a subscription journal into an open access one and also launching a new open access journal. It also provides supplementary information for open access journal developers and publishers.
• Guide to Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Societies details options available for scholarly societies and other small publishers to convert their journals into open access and strategies to remain sustainable.
• Scientific Electronic Online Library (SciELO) is a South American based directory of scholarly journals and literature.

Open Access Books

• Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. Academic publishers are invited to provide metadata of their Open Access books to DOAB.
• CGBooks. In partnership with Google Books,CGIAR provides full-text versions of agriculture books from the consortia of its research institutions.
• SpringerLink. Provides access to electronic agricultural related books under the 'Earth and Environmental Science' section.
• Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. A few titles in earth sciences, geography, and environment can be downloaded.
• Wiley Open Access. Access is provided to open access materials mainly journals and a few books in the subjects of 'Food and Nutrition'.
• InTech Open Science is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. Browse the Agriculture and Biological sciences and environmental sciences for agriculture related books.
• Versita Open publishes scholarly books and journals ; the ebook collection is still growing.
• Open Access Textbook . Provides a model to publishing open access textbooks and link to Open Access textbooks resources.

Open Access in the World

• Global Open Access Portal: access by region (GOAP) is a portal with a regional and country view of open access projects. It provides an in-depth country view of open access projects worldwide.
• Open Access Map: charting the growth and development of Open Access globally - allows a world visualisation of repositories using maps and these can be viewed by full lists.

Impact

• Open Access impact: a Briefing Paper for researchers, universities and funders details the impact measurements of open access for researchers, universities, and funders. Details background issues relating to impact measurement.
• New metrics for research outputs: an overview presents an overview of issues relating to metrics for open access journals.

Networks of Open Access Repositories

• Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) is an association for repository initiatives (with representation from throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and North America) to enhance greater visibility and application of research outputs through global networks of Open Access digital repositories.
• Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER) is a collaboration to build a network of freely accessible digital repositories with content across academic disciplines.