Open Access Publishing

There are many actions that researchers at HMS, HSPH, and HSDM can take to support OA publishing:

• Start by negotiating with your publisher (if necessary) to retain copyright to your work so that you can submit your published work to OA repositories, such as DASH.

• Use OA resources in your own research and teaching:

  • Unpaywall: browser extension that helps you find OA works.

  • Open Educational Resources (OER): OA teaching materials and textbooks.

  • Mason OER Meta Finder (MOM): real time federated search for OER content.

• Publish your own work in an OA journal. The SPARC Author Addendum can help you retain more rights to make your work accessible. 

• Volunteer to serve as a peer reviewer or editor for an OA  journal.

• Advocate for promotion and tenure committees to include support for OA journal publication in their policies.

• Encourage discussion of scholarly publishing issues in your department or school.

• Invite the library to speak at faculty departmental meetings and graduate seminars to discuss scholarly publishing issues.

• Educate all of your students about the benefits of sharing their research and supporting the OA movement.

• Students can consider starting an advocacy group on campus to educate their peers and the university administration about how OA issues impact their education.