Open Access and Creative Commons

Using apps and search engines to locate open access resources

Open access resources are becoming more available as the philosophy behind it gains support, returning scholarly publishing to its original purpose of spreading knowledge and building on that knowledge. The discoverability of open access has a significant impact on education, research, academic freedom, and innovation.

Finding OA resources in institutional repositories and archives

To locate eprints or institutional repositories, use eprints, archive, repository or "institutional repository" as a search term in an internet search engine.

To locate a specific archive or institutional repository to search within, use the name of the institution and repository or institutional repository, e.g.

  • repository AND cquniversity
  • "institutional repository" AND cquniversity

To find out which repositories are available within a defined area, such as a state or country, search for the area and repository or institutional repository, e.g.

  • repository AND university AND Australia
  • "institutional repository" AND university AND Australia

Finding Creative Commons materials

Open access resources that may be copied, reused and shared, are often published under a Creative Commons licence:

1. The Creative Commons Information Pack prepared by Smartcopying contains:

2. Further information on locating licensed Creative Commons content, including images, is available from Creative Commons Australia.