Entering its 14th year, International Open Access Week is a global event to engage communities about the potential benefits of open access. This year’s Open Access Week will be held from October 25th to 31st. The theme for this year’s International Open Access Week is “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity.”

What is Open Access?
A publication is defined as Open Access when anyone can freely access – read, download, copy, distribute within legal agreements.

What are the Benefits of Open Access?

• Improves the visibility of your work as it can be read by everyone
• Allows your research findings to be disseminated quickly via multiple channels
• Allows you to retain your author’s rights to your research publications
• Complies with funding agencies to make your publications publicly accessible (e.g. Ministry of Education (MOE), National Research Foundation (NRF), National Medical Research Council (NMRC) and Agency for Science, Technology and Research(A*STAR))

How Can You Support Open Access?

• Gold Open Access – Publishing your research in an Open Access journals
  Advantage: You can retain all your rights and allow your publication to be accessed by anyone immediately upon publication.
  Limitation: You will need to pay for Article Processing Charges (APC) to publish in Gold Open Access.
  Note: NUS libraries have established agreements with some publishers to support Open Access. Check out this guide to find out more.
• Green Open Access – Publish your research in a subscription-based journal and making a version of the article available in repositories
  Advantage: Does not incur additional cost
  Limitation: Research is not available to the public and is only available to subscribers of the journal. Individual publisher has different guidelines for sharing, such as the versions allow, embargo period and which platforms are allowed for posting.

ScholarBank@NUS
We support Green Open Access via our NUS institutional repository, ScholarBank@NUS. Start depositing your publications into ScholarBank@NUS now to make your research more discoverable and accessible!

Unsure on where and how to start? Watch the following short videos (1-3 mins) to learn more about depositing process, copyright policies and the different versions of publications.

• How to deposit publication to ScholarBank@NUS?
  (For NUS staff with Elements account, it is recommended to deposit via NUS Elements instead. Refer to this Sway guide on how to deposit to ScholarBank@NUS via NUS Elements)
• How to check journal copyright?
• What are the different publication versions?

Upcoming Event
Join us in the upcoming COAR Asia OA Meeting 2021, which will be held from October 25-27, 2021. This meeting will discuss the latest trends in open access and open scholarships in Asia. The meeting is hosted by Singapore Alliance of University Libraries (SAUL), which comprises of the libraries of Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education, National University of Singapore, Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Yale NUS College in collaboration with the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).

Check out the details of the meeting here: COAR Asia OA Meeting 2021 Programme