OA Repositories
A majority of freely available resources on the Internet are copyright protected and not scholarly based. Google is not reliable for searching for OA scholarly materials.
There are many reputable repositories for finding OA scholarly articles (e.g., those that were peer-reviewed before being accepted for publication) and other research works. Below are some of these repositories. OA repositories are particularly useful for alumni and those who do not have access to library databases offered by colleges and universities but want to do research for their professional and personal activities.
- Social Science Research NetworkA repository of OA research articles in a wide range of disciplines including social services, health care, humanities, visual, performing and fine arts, engineering, computer science, as well as business leadership and management.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)Indexes reputable OA journals and articles. To find articles on a research topic, select "articles" and type in your keywords in the search box.
- PubMed CentralFind full-text biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
- Disciplinary OA RepositoriesSimmons University's list of OA repositories by discipline.
- Digital Commons NetworkFind peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, etc., from colleges and universities worldwide.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar differs from Google because Google Scholar locates scholarly articles and other academic publications. Google Scholar links to the OA version of an article when it is available - see screenshot of examples below. These OA articles are often housed on journal websites, in authors' institutional repositories, and on online sharing sites such as Academia.
If you are interested in reading an article found through Google Scholar that requires payment to access, do a search by its article title in Sheridan Library's Page1+ to see if our library has access to it. If the article is unavailable in our library collection, check in the author's institutional repository to see if it is available there.
Finding Other Researchers' OA Work Through Social Media
Some authors upload their publications to online sharing websites such as Academia, ResearchGate, and Slideshare. These sources are helpful for locating working papers, unpublished materials, grey literature, presentation slides, in addition to OA versions of journal articles. However, note that if you register for a login on these sites, your email address may be shared with third-party sources.
Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Mastodon are great sources for networking with scholars and professionals in your field and getting alerts on their latest research projects, OA publications, working papers, etc. For example, some scholars share their documents via Google Doc and post the links to their documents via social media.
