(University of Oregon, 2021) University of Oregon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE ON OPEN ACCESS
The state of global scholarly communications has evolved rapidly over the last two decades, as
libraries, funders and some publishers have sought to hasten the spread of more open
practices for the dissemination of results in scholarly research worldwide. These practices have
become collectively known as Open Access (OA), defined as "the free, immediate, online
availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital
environment." The aim of this report — the Open Access White Paper by the Senate
Subcommittee on Open Access at the University of Oregon — is to review the factors that
have precipitated these recent changes and to explain their relevance for members of the
University of Oregon community.
