Background: ‘Gold’ open access—known as ‘green’ open access. Secondly, authors can choose to make their Cochrane Review freely available immediately upon payment of an article processing charge— The Cochrane Collaboration aspires to prepare and publish high-quality research aimed at informing decision-making globally and to make this available via one-click access at the point of use. On February 1, 2013, two open access options were introduced for all Cochrane Reviews for the first time. Firstly, all new and updated Cochrane Reviews will be made freely available 12 months after publication.

Objectives: To summarise the new open access options and provide analytics on their uptake and impact on usage and access, evaluate how ‘open’ the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is according to the ‘How open is it?’ guide (www.plos.org/about/open-access/ howopenisit/), and describe how this relates to funder mandates.

Results: The open access options and the analytics will be described. Figure 1 (modified from HowOpenIsIt? Open Access spectrum’,
c 2013 SPARC and PLOS, licensed under CC-BY) shows where the CDSR currently fits onto the open-access spectrum.

Conclusions: Open access is here to stay and the CDSR is responding to requirements of funders and authors to provide different options for making Cochrane Reviews open access. However, the open access landscape is still evolving and so it is important that anyone involved in producing Cochrane Reviews is aware of their funder’s particular requirements, and the publishing options available to them. Figure 1. How open is it? Gold and green access in the CDSR