Open Access is devoted to making information available online, free, and unrestricted. In addition to scholarly publications, the Open Access Movement also includes Open Science, Open Data, and Open Education - freeing the research process for even quicker dissemination of knowledge and more rapid discovery.
Open Access affects most of the cycle of Scholarly Communication and 1) Allows greater access to resources supporting research, through open access publishing or open access repositories; 2) Allows for text or data mining.
Many funding agencies have policies requiring open access to articles resulting from their funding.
The symbol of the unlocked padlock identifies open access resources.
Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics)