Open Access Research Resources
Each of you will need to determine how to access secondary sources, and what kinds of secondary sources, as you conduct research. This is because each of us will have different sorts of access to secondary sources depending on our local contexts. However, the resources listed below represent a number of open-access databases that you may be able to use as you think about sources.
Before looking at individual databases, You may consider using the Mason OER Metafinder to search across a number of OER resources at once: “the OER Metafinder launches a real-time, simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials as you hit the Search button.”
Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)You might also consider using OASIS: “Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 98 different sources and contains 368,237 records. OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.”
The Biodiversity Heritage Library
"The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community."
"Dedicated to open research, we now publish over 290 quality peer-reviewed journals in Biology, Clinical Medicine and Health."
"CORE’s mission is to aggregate all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public. In this way CORE facilitates free unrestricted access to research for all."
Creative Commons Education/OER Resources
“Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a globally accessible public commons of knowledge and culture. We make it easier for people to share their creative and academic work, as well as to access and build upon the work of others. By helping people and organizations share knowledge and creativity, we aim to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world."
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
"The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science."
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
"DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals."
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
"ERIC is a widely searched education database used by millions of researchers, students, faculty, librarians, and others searching for education research."
"All articles in open access journals which are published by Elsevier have undergone peer review and upon acceptance are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download."
The Internet Archive and Open Library
"The Internet Archive and Open Library offers over 10,000,000 fully accessible books and texts. There is also a collection of 300,000 modern eBooks that may be borrowed or downloaded by the print-disabled at OpenLibrary.org."
“PLOS publishes a suite of influential Open Access journals across all areas of science and medicine. Rigorously reported, peer reviewed and immediately available without restrictions, promoting the widest readership and impact possible.”
"PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)."
Sage Pure Gold Open Access Journals
"All articles published in the journals provide worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on publication under a creative commons license. All articles are rigorously peer-reviewed retaining the quality hallmarks of the academic publishing process that authors would experience in publishing in any traditional SAGE journal."
"The SpringerOpen portfolio...offer[s] researchers from all areas of science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences a place to publish open access in journals and books."
Taylor and Francis Open Journals
"Taylor and Francis and Routledge currently publish a number of pure open access journals, with no subscription content. The articles in these journals receive both rigorous peer review and expedited online publication."
"The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) launched a new internet based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point (http://data.un.org/). Users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN system."
"Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines."
Additional Image Resources with Zero or Few Copyright Restrictions