Center for Digital Scholarship

Open Access and Scholarly Communications

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Open Access and Scholarly Communications

CDS supports Brown University’s faculty and student scholarly communication and creative publishing endeavors in a variety of ways.

Open and Public Access Publications

With an open access publication, a reader has the author’s permission to freely access, make a copy, and redistribute the work online and, in some cases, even make a derivative of the work.

Brown’s mission statement includes a commitment to sharing knowledge with the world.

In CDS we realize that not all parts of the world can afford access to many of the articles and monographs written by scholars at Brown. We can help faculty and student authors with options for making a digital copy of their scholarly and creative works freely available.

These options include:

  • Gold Open Access: Helping to identify an open access publisher.
  • Green Open Access: Making a version of their publication, a pre-peer review or post-peer reviewed, pre-publication manuscript available online.
  • Public Access: Guiding deposit of a copy of their work in a funder’s publication database.

Brown University authors can use the Brown Digital Repository (BDR) to self-disseminate copies of pre-prints and final peer-reviewed manuscripts. We can also help you with selecting a license for helping readers understand what they have your permission to do with your work.

More Information on Open Access Options

Open Access Publication Requirements of Public Federal Grants

The largest share of the financial support for research at Brown derives from federal grants funded by the public. Several federal granting agencies have developed their own databases to freely disseminate articles funded by the public. While public access articles have restrictions on their use by an individual, including redistributing the work online and production of derivative works, they can still be freely accessed and read by the public.

If your work was sponsored by public funds, we can help you with depositing your article in a funder’s public access database.

Born-Digital Publications

Publications can take many forms. While many people are familiar with articles and monographs in either paper or PDF form, the web has extended the form and nature of scholarly communications.

If you need any help with these applications — or help matching a tool to your needs — feel free to contact us.

CDS Open Access Projects

Contact

For inquiries regarding open access and scholarly communications, please contact cds_info@brown.edu.