Exploring the Concept of Open Access Journals

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the exploration and elucidation of the open access concept, with the main emphasis on open access journals, their types and features, etc. Similarly, the thrust was also given to acquaint the audience with the open access journal publishers, in order to aware them about the availability of open access literature and the opportunities where open access research can be published by the authors or scientists. In order to give some practical flavors to the readers of this study, the focus of the study was also made towards gauging the active open access journals indexed by the Scopus database. Moreover, particular emphasis was given to check the distribution of active open access journals indexed by it in the fields of life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and health sciences. The purpose was to ease the users to search and use the open access journal literature as per the subject taste.