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Open Access Resources
What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) is defined by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) as “Free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives.”
In the scholarly publishing environment, there are 3 types of open access. They are:
- Green OA (self-archiving)
- Authors are granted archival right for articles published in subscription journals.
- CDC Stacks is the institutional repository of record for CDC authors.
- Gold OA
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Articles are published in open access journals.
- Costs associated with publishing are usually passed on to authors in the form of article processing charges or off-set by institutional or governmental support.
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- Hybrid OA
- Many subscription journals provide authors with a choice to publish their articles as Open Access. Article processing charges will typically be incurred by the author if that model is requested.
- Many authors choose this model to increase availability of their research.
Articles and eBooks
- Directory of Open Access Repositories (DOAR)
- An overview to open access academic resources and eBooks.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- An index of open access journals from around the world.
Open access scholarly publications
Preprints
These articles have not yet been peer-reviewed but can give insights into emerging areas of inquiry. All articles available via preprint services are available at no cost. Preprints relevant to public health include:
Practice guidelines
Clinical and community-based practice guidelines summarize evidence on best practices.
CDC clinical and community-based practice guidelines
- CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Guidelines
- CDC COVID-19 Guidance
- CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Recommendations and Reports
Other clinical practice guidelines
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force – Clinical preventive services
- NIH-NCCIH Clinical Practice Guidelines
- VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (UK evidence-based recommendations site)
- Canadian Clinical Practice Guidelines
- Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines
- ECRI (Emergency Care Research Institute)
- Clinical practice guideline repository (registration required)
- Trip Clinical Search Engine
Other community-based practice guidelines
- Guide to Community Preventive Services
- Guideline Central
- GIN (Guidelines International Network) International Guidelines Library