Open Access (also referred to as Open Science or OA) initiatives refers to removing barriers such as "paywalls" and seek to make research articles and other works easy to find and read for free. These materials can be used as provided but do not include permissions to change or distribute the content.
This means that anyone can access OA materials without the information being behind the typical paywalls or barriers that scholarly information is often restricted by. Even in the US, many libraries cannot afford the subscriptions to elite journals and vice versa, many researchers cannot afford the often high publishing fees to get their work published in a scholarly journal. Peer-reviewed Open Access Journals are making it easier for researchers to access and share information.
Despite being advertised as Open Access, some journals are predatory, meaning that they rely on a business model based on publication fees or requiring authors to sign over some or all of their copyrights and publishing rights. This business model inherently goes against the core philosophy of the Open Access/Open Science movement. We have listed some predatory journals below for you to be aware of and avoid using.