Open Access Computer Science Journals in the DOAJ: An analytical study

Open access (OA) refers to free, unrestricted online access to research outputs such as journal articles and books. It includes the practice of making peer-reviewed scholarly research and literature freely available online to the readers. The open access movement started with several declarations provided in the early 2000s: The Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003), and The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003). OA journals have shown a widespread growth in different disciplines worldwide. The publishing of new OA journals and transformation of commercial journals to OA model has increased their access. Publishers have also shown increased positive attitude towards OA practice. The number of OA journals are increasing day by day showing a positive sign towards this concept. Directory of open access journals has registered almost 168 journals in the field of Computer Science/Electronic Computers which are published by the academic institutions, different organizations, varied societies, renowned research centers and also by commercial publishers.