The most significant development in scholarly publishing over the past 20-plus years is open access, an approach to scholarly sharing that first took hold in the sciences but is now accepted across the disciplines as legitimate and even desirable. At this point, most researchers are familiar with the term “open access” but may not be fully aware of what it does and doesn’t mean, or the details of how it’s achieved.

Strictly speaking, “open access” (OA) refers to scholarly literature that is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions,” a definition we borrow from an influential book on the subject by Peter Suber (p. 4). The most common way to share a work “free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” is with a Creative Commons license.

However, many people also use “open access” to refer to scholarly literature that is simply publicly available online — i.e., accessible to all at no cost, regardless of its copyright or licensing status. These dueling definitions can cause confusion, but for authors who want their scholarly contributions to be found and read as broadly as possible, either form of OA is preferable to closed (i.e., paywalled) access to their work.

Over the years, OA journals have often been confused with vanity publishing, so it is worth stating explicitly: An OA journal is one that anyone can access and read, not one that anyone can publish in. All reputable OA journals vet their articles with some form of peer review. Unfortunately, dishonest OA publishers (often referred to as “predatory” OA publishers) exist as well, and publishing in these journals can damage your scholarly reputation, so it’s important to avoid them. (For more information, see Evaluating Journals & Avoiding Scams.)