A list of common terms used in Open Access publishing and the publishing process along with their definitions.
Copyright - a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.
Deposit - adding research output to a repository
Embargo - a period during which a scholarly work has restricted access. Once the embargo period has passed the scholarly work is available to researchers.
Fair Use - a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.
Institutional Repository - an online, historical archive that houses an Institution's research output. The institutional repository can include faculty publications that appears in peer-reviewed journals, books and book-sections, technical reports, working papers, monographs, conference presentations, audio and visual materials or any other research content that has some scholarly value.
Metadata - data that describes the item. It is the data that creates a bibliographic record. This includes author, abstract, title, subject headings, etc.
Open Access - the online availability of scholarly work via the internet, free of charge
Pre-Print - the first draft of an article, before peer-review
Post-Print - The peer-reviewed, final version of an article prior to publication, also known as the Accepted Author Manuscript.
Public Domain - refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws.
Publisher's PDF - the final published version of an article.