Open irony refers to the situation where a scholarly journal article advocates open access but the article itself is only accessible by paying a fee to the journal publisher to read the article.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hull |first1=Duncan |title=The Open Access Irony Awards: Naming and shaming them |url=https://duncan.hull.name/2012/02/15/open-irony/ |website=O'Really? |date=15 February 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Duncan |first1=Green |title=Whatever happened to the Academic Spring? (Or the irony of hiding papers on transparency and accountability behind a paywall) |url=https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/whatever-happened-to-the-academic-spring-or-the-irony-of-being-prevented-from-reading-papers-on-transparency-and-accountability/ |website=From Poverty to Power |date=7 August 2013 |access-date=30 October 2020 |archive-date=20 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020235834/https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/whatever-happened-to-the-academic-spring-or-the-irony-of-being-prevented-from-reading-papers-on-transparency-and-accountability/ |url-status=deadusurped }}</ref><ref name="Open Access to Publications to Expa">{{cite journal |last1=Marwick |first1=Ben |title=Open Access to Publications to Expand Participation in Archaeology |journal=Norwegian Archaeological Review |date=29 October 2020 |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=163–169 |doi=10.1080/00293652.2020.1837233|s2cid=228961066 |url=http://osf.io/v9kfy/ }}</ref> This has been noted in many fields, with more than 20 examples appearing since around 2010, including in widely-read journals such as ''[[The Lancet]]'', ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' and ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]''. In 2012 Duncan Hull proposed the Open Access Irony award to publicly humiliate journals that publish these kinds of papers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schultz |first1=Teresa Auch |title=Practicing What You Preach: Evaluating Access of Open Access Research |journal=The Journal of Electronic Publishing |date=2 March 2018 |volume=21 |issue=1 |doi=10.3998/3336451.0021.103|doi-access=free |hdl=2027/spo.3336451.0021.103 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Examples of these have been shared and discussed on social media using the [[hashtag]] #openirony. Typically, these discussions are humorous exposures of articles/editorials that are pro-open access, but locked behind paywalls. The main concern that motivates these discussions is that restricted access to public scientific knowledge is slowing scientific progress.<ref name="Open Access to Publications to Expa"/> The practice has been justified as important for raising awareness of open access.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Eve |first1=Martin Paul |title=How ironic are the open access irony awards? |url=https://eve.gd/2013/10/21/how-ironic-are-the-open-access-irony-awards/ |website=Martin Paul Eve |language=en |date=21 October 2013|doi=10.59348/zg970-89g70 }}</ref>
