5.1 Introduction
Open Access information refers to free availability of scholarly resources in Internet, mostly journal articles. Users can not only consult them for free but can also download, copy, print and distribute them. There are several advantages to this model. But there exist many issues and challenges that hinder the progress of OA and raise questions about its feasibility. There are several issues related to the quality of the OA journals, regarding their economic sustainability, funding etc. This Unit highlights several issues and challenges of OA. The outcome is awareness of issues, challenges and noting some successful, sustained practical open access publishing efforts. The issues of OA are in multidimensional in nature and a multipronged approach of mandates, policies, funding and implementations is needed to overcome the challenges. At the end of this unit the reader will know issues and challenges enroute to achieving Open access.