Open Access

Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is an international academic initiative aimed at advancing open access to scholarly knowledge. Founded at the University of British Columbia, the project is now supported by multiple partner institutions. Its flagship achievement is Open Journal Systems (OJS) – open-source software used by thousands of journals worldwide to manage peer review and publish research articles online. PKP also develops other tools, such as Open Monograph Press and Open Preprint Systems, supporting digital distribution of books and preprints. Together, they form an ecosystem that covers the entire publishing workflow: from submission, through peer review, to making content accessible to readers. ...

🔗 arXiv.org is one of the most important open scientific repositories in the world. Founded in 1991 by physicist Paul Ginsparg, it has become a key platform for scientific preprints – early versions of research papers shared before formal peer review in journals. arXiv covers a wide range of fields: physics, mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, economics, statistics, and even social sciences. Hundreds of new papers are added every day, making it one of the most dynamic sources of scientific knowledge online. ...

🔗 sci-hub.se is one of the most impactful and controversial websites in the history of online science. Created in 2011 by Kazakh programmer Alexandra Elbakyan, it offers free access to millions of academic research papers that are otherwise locked behind expensive journal paywalls. Functionally, Sci-Hub is a minimalist tool: you paste in a DOI or article URL, and it returns the full PDF — instantly, without login, subscription, or ads. The site draws on both cached repositories and institutional access points to deliver content from publishers like Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, and others. ...