Open Access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. It can be in form of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers as well as technical reports, theses and working papers but also research data and multimedia files or in fact any other format as long as it is being understood as valuable to share freely for research, teaching and other purposes. This is made possible by the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.

Open Access movement

The Open Access movement is the worldwide effort to provide free online access to scientific and scholarly research literature, especially peer-reviewed journal articles and their preprints.

The Open Access movement started out with a series of statements or declarations. Historically the movement has progressed and gained momentum since 2002 through three major statements made in Budapest, Bethesda and Berlin.

• Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002);
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003);
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003) .