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Open at MRU
Open Access, Open Data, and Open Educational Resources are all part of a movement to help equalize access to education and scholarship by fostering an inclusive way to create and disseminate knowledge.
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What is Open Access?
Open Access publications are freely available online without the need for subscriptions or payments, allowing readers to download, copy, and distribute the content with proper attribution to the authors.
Open Scholarship
Open Scholarship expands research access and impact by eliminating barriers. MRU supports open scholarship through our Institutional Repository and Data Repository where research and scholarship created by the MRU community can be immediately and freely accessed, as well as providing open access publishing support.
Open Education
Open access is a way to contribute to barrier-free academic resources that are available to all learners. Incorporating open educational resources are incorporated into instruction, faculty contribute to a more sustainable model for education.
Why Open Access?
Increased access and audience
Open access publications are freely available, giving anyone, anywhere, the ability to find, read, and share research. Unlike profit-driven subscription publications, OA resources do not charge subscription fees or require users to pay before they can view the content.
Citation advantage
With more people reading your work, better access leads to increased citation rates for authors. Known as the open access citation advantage, several studies have demonstrated the value of OA.
Publicly-funded research belongs to the public
In Canada, most researchers working at universities receive public funding, through grants and salaries, to conduct research. The research funded by public tax dollars should be available to the public as quickly as possible.
Rigorous and high quality research
Misperceptions around the quality of open access publications remain, and some people continue to perceive articles published in open access journals as lower quality than those published in “traditional’ journals. While some predatory publishers do exist, the truth is that legitimate OA journals use the same quality control processes, including rigorous peer-review, editorial oversight, systems for retraction, and expectations of professional and ethical behaviour by researchers and publishers.
Library position statement on open access:
In 2014 the Library Faculty Council affirmed the Library's commitment to open access with this position statement.
Copyright and Open Access
Copyright and Open Access
In most cases, authors who publish via an open access model retain more rights over their works than when publishing under a profit-driven model. Authors who publish via open access agree to the right of reuse, allowing unrestricted distribution (downloading, copying, sharing, storing, and printing) of the full-text work, so long as the original author is given credit. To communicate these flexible terms of use, authors may choose to license their works under an open copyright license, such as Creative Commons.
- For more information on author rights, see the 2019 CARL Guide to Author Rights.
- To search for permissions given by publishers as part of a journal publisher's copyright transfer agreement see the SHERPA/RoMEo tool.
- For more information about copyright and research/scholarship, visit the MRU Copyright Libguide.
Open Champions
Learn more about the scholars, students and community leaders advocating for equitable access to open education at MRU.
