Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and Research Impact

A publication is considered in Open access if:

• its content is universally and freely accessible, at no cost to the reader, via the Internet or otherwise;
• the author or copyright owner irrevocably grants to all users, for an unlimited period, the right to use, copy, or distribute the article, on condition that proper attribution is given;
• it is deposited, immediately, in full and in a suitable electronic form, in at least one widely and internationally recognized open access repository committed to open access. (UNESCO)

 Open Access - a complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository). (PLOS)

Research impact is the contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture, beyond the contribution to academic research. (Australian Research Council)

Research impact is the beneficial application of expertise, knowledge, analysis or discovery and the  effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (REF 2014)