This week we’ll be highlighting Open Access on the blog in celebration of Open Access Week! Let’s start with the basics, what is Open Access? From our Scholarly Publishing LibGuide, “Open Access (OA) is the free, immediate, online availability of learning materials, research, and creative work.” Open Access helps to remove barriers to people who are traditionally kept out of academic circles, making research more accessible and equal. The traditional publishing model places a lot of valuable research behind a paywall. As a student, you can go right through many of these paywalls because of the access granted to you by the University of Iowa, but for the majority of people, these resources are out of reach. Open Access takes down those paywalls, and with more people having more access to more information, more research and collaboration happen, which means science, math, art, and every other discipline improves. The University of Iowa Libraries supports Open Access through negotiating transformative agreements and publishing discounts, and other open access agreements. Your professors may also publish their own works in Open Access! Follow along this week as we explore Open Access, Open Science, and how it impacts you.