Open access (OA) to journal publications is growing. About a third to half of articles have a free (OA) version availbe somewhere on the Web. However, sourcing those is not always straight forward.
Check out these time-saving and easy-to-install Open Access tools that instantly search aggregated repositories, Open Access journals, preprint servers, etc.
CORE Discovery finds Open Access copies of articles, using the CORE dataset of millions of full-text OA papers, as well as the data of other providers.
CORE Discovery says it has "the best grip on open content from open repositories as opposed to other services that disproportionately focus only on content indexed in major commercial databases."
If the paper you're looking for isn't available Open Access then CORE will suggest other papers on the same topic that are Open Access. More details {here}.
Open Access Button searches thousands of sources containing millions of articles to connect you to an article instantly if it is freely available.
They claim their sources include globally aggregated repositories, hybrid articles, open access journals, and those on authors personal pages.
► Unpaywall Data
► Share
► CORE
► OpenAIRE
► Dissem.in
► Europe PMC
► BASE
The OA Button also provides a service for requesting an article from the author if you don't have access via subscription and the article isn't yet OA.
Unpaywall searches the Unpaywall database which works by harvesting from Open Access sources to find OA content and then matching that content to the Crossref DOI. For any DOI searched via the plugin, Unpaywall "knows about any OA versions that exist anywhere".
Get the browser extension {here}!
Kopernio provides a link to the "best available full-text PDF" of an article and works in the same way as other OA browser extensions; by searching for an OA version on open databases on the Web. Its less common feature is that you can set up Kopernio so that it will provide a link to enable you to first check whether DCU Library provides subscription access via any of our A-Z databases.
A guide to getting the most out of Kopernio and setting up your connection to check your possible subscription access to the PDF, before Kopernio delivers an OA version, is available {here}.
Kopernio is best used when you're not on the DCU campus network - because on-campus subscription access to articles will be automatic and the other plugins on this page will find OA content.
Google Scholar button enables you to check if you have access (subscription or Open Access) to an article. When viewing a web page of an article (or select the text of any publication reference), click on the Google Scholar button and it automatically runs a search in Google Scholar and returns the top results in a little popup window on the web page you are on.
The results include links to the full-text. Setup 'Dublin City University' in your Google Scholar settings – this means the links will include DCU's journal subscriptions.
First, go to Google Scholar; choose the menu icon in the top left-hand corner; select Settings; select Library links, search for: Dublin City University; select the ‘Dublin City University’ option; click Save
Tip:
► Run a search in Google, then click the button – and it runs the same search in Google Scholar and brings the results back