Open Access is devoted to making scholarly 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, to name a few:
For a more comprehensive look at Open Access, the best place to begin is the book, Open Access, by Peter Suber, published by MIT Press and available in Boatwright Library (Call Number Z286.O63 S83 2012).