Find Free Open Access Literature and Stay Informed: Four pro Tips for EconBiz

The specialist portal EconBiz provides access to business studies and economics literature, including many Open Access full texts and journals as well as Open Educational Resources. This blog post introduces the subject portal and shows you four features of EconBiz to simplify your search for Open Access publications.

EconBiz is a portal for literature search in important German and international databases for business studies and economics, including the holdings of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. It provides access to free and licensed full texts, for example to Open Access publications provided by the ZBW. Thus, EconBiz supports Open Science by providing direct Open Access to free full texts. Where there is no free alternative yet, the portal also shows ways and access points to licensed literature. In addition, EconBiz offers tips for researchers at all career levels as well as assistance for students.

How to use EconBiz to search for Open Access publications

You can use the following EconBiz features to find Open Access full texts and other Open Access publications:

  1. Find Open Access full texts

EconBiz makes it easy for you to find Open Access full texts: Enter your search terms in the search field in the portal and check the box Open Access only below the search field. This will limit the search to Open Access full texts. You can easily recognize Open Access publications by their green Open Access label.

Screenshot: econbiz.de
  1. Stay informed about new Open Access full texts

Would you like to receive notifications about new Open Access publications on your topic? Enter your search preferences (for example: search term nudge, check Open Access only) and submit your search. Then click on the RSS icon at the bottom of the page. If you already have a feed reader installed as an add-on in your browser, it will open the feed and you can subscribe to receive notifications.

Screenshot: econbiz.de

If you do not use a feed reader and prefer to receive notifications about new titles via e-mail, copy the URL of the page that now opens and add it as an RSS feed to your e-mail programme (for example: in Outlook in the e-mail navigation area, right-click on the “RSS feeds” folder). You will receive notifications as soon as there are new results for your search.

Screenshot: econbiz.de
  1. Find Open Access journals on your topic

EconBiz not only lists Open Access full texts, but also over 20,000 Open Access journals. To find an Open Access journal on your topic, narrow down your search using the filters on the right – Online availability: free for free full texts and Type of publication: journal for journals and series.  

Now all Open Access journals are preselected. To further narrow down your search by topic, either select one of the keywords in the filter Subject (for example: economic policy) or add search terms in the search field (for example: entrepreneurship) and check Retain my current filters before submitting your search.

Screenshot: econbiz.de
  1. Find open access resources for your teaching

You can also use EconBiz to find Open Educational materials for your teaching:

  • Search for “teaching case” (with quotation marks) and check Open Access only to find case studies for your seminar.
  • Search for “type_genre:textbook” (without spaces) and check Open Access only to find Open Access textbooks.
  • Use the EconBiz Open Educational Resources in the Research Skills section for your teaching, such as the guide Write your Best Paper for undergraduates or one of the Academic Career Kits for doctoral students.

More tips and tools for search for Open Access literature

Would you like to learn about other options? Check out the Open Economics Guide for more tips on finding Open Access literature as well as more research tools for Open Access literature and for Open Data.

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