Open Educational Resources (OER): Finding Open Access in the Library

There are several ways to find open access materials through the Dean B. Ellis Library. While library personnel are constantly evaluating the resources we link to, it is possible that not all open access resources discoverable through the library are high quality. If you do find a resource through the library and would like us to look at it more closely, please contact April Sheppard at asheppard@astate.edu.

The Library's discovery service is the OneSearch search bar on the Library's homepage. While OneSearch does not search everything that the library has access to through subscription, it does search all the open access items we link to. There are two ways to limit OneSearch to open access items only:

Using the Open Access Refine Limiter:

After you search for anything in OneSearch, you will be taken to a results page that will have several limiters on the left hand side of the screen. The top group of limiters is the "Refine Your Search" section. Click on "Open Access" to limit your results to open access items only.

OneSearch Advanced Search:

If you prefer to limit  before you search, the OneSearch Advanced Search is a better choice for you. You can get to the Advanced Search by clicking on the link under the search bar on the Library's home page. Once in the Advanced Search, you will see several boxes of limiters. One of the bottom boxes will be the "Limit to" box. Click on the "Open Access items only" box and search!

OneSearch is good for finding individual articles, but what if you want to find open access journals? In this case, use our Journals Search tool to find specific journals! You can find the Journals Search bar on the Library's homepage, under OneSearch box.

If you're looking for a particular title, you can enter the title in the search and hit the "Search" button. I recommend that you select "Title Contains All Words" from the drop down menu before you search to get the best results. Another option is to browse all the journals in your field:

Browsing the Journals Search

First, click on the "Browse by Title or Subject" link under the Find Journals search bar on the library's home page:

 
After you click the "Browse by Title or Subject" link, you will be taken to a browse and search page:

This section is divided into three areas:

1. A search bar (search by keyword or ISSN)
2. Browse by Title
3. Browse by Subject

To browse by subject, click on the broad subject category that most closely relates to your topic. For example if I want to find journals on "sociology," I would click on the "Social Sciences" subject. This will expand the subject list to more narrowed subjects:

Once you select your subject area, you will be taken to a new screen that lists all the journals in the field. At the top of the list will be a new limiter that will allow you limit to Open Access or Peer Reviewed: