Access & Subscriptions

While the Science Web site offers a wealth of free content to guest users, including abstracts and summaries of articles and papers, daily science news briefs, and limited e-mail alerts, a much richer experience is available to those who fill out a free site registration or, best of all, who enter the site via a personal subscription/membership or institutional site license. The gory details can be found in the access chart in our subscriptions area; below, we present a brief plain-language summary of your options for unlocking the site's riches.

ACCESS TO CONTENT

As an individual, you can access our sites' content as an unregistered guest, as a registered user, as an individual subscriber, or as a user at a site-licensed institution such as a library, university, or company.

  • Unregistered guests can read the full text of article abstracts and summaries for Science, Science Signaling, and SAGE KE, selected additional free sections and features (such as Essays on Science and Society in Science), daily ScienceNOW news briefs for four weeks after initial publication, and all article content on ScienceCareers.org, as well as selected special Web features available in our Collections area.
  • Registered users have the same access as unregistered guests, plus full-text access to all Science research papers published after 1996 and more than 12 months ago, to selected other content and features such as Science Editorials and the Science Signaling Connections Maps, to the articles on the SAGE KE archive site, and to selected articles or special features that are periodically offered for free to registered users. For users at institutions with a site license, registration unlocks a variety of site services as well. (To register for free, click here.)
  • Subscribers have access to the full range of site content and features. A subscription to Science -- including online access to all of the journal's content back to the first issue, in 1880 -- and access to the historical archive of ScienceNOW news articles are included with membership in AAAS, as is access to Science Express articles published online before they appear in print. Full-text access to Science Signaling requires a separate subscription. (To learn more about subscriber/member benefits and join up, click here).
  • Institutional subscription plans may include Science (1997-current issue), Science Classic (the digital archives of Science, 1880-1996), Science Express, Science Signaling, and Science Translational Medicine. If your library is not currently subscribed, you can go here to recommend a subscription.
Access Rights link example

Remember, you can get a quick reading on the access rights you currently have available by clicking the "Access Rights" link on the account toolbar in the upper right-hand corner of the page, directly beneath the search box.

You can also purchase access to the full text of individual articles on a pay-per-article basis. Just click the "Purchase" button on the sign-in screen for the article you're interested in.

ACCESS TO SERVICES

In addition to our premier scientific articles and other content, our Web sites offer a variety of services to add productivity and richness to your online experience. Some of these services, such as searching and RSS feeds, are available to all visitors. A free registration enables sign-up for summary e-mail alerts as well as more targeted and content-rich alerts. An individual membership/subscription, or a free registration for users at site-licensed institutions, opens up a range of more powerful tools, including the ability to save searches and to organize articles into online folders, and direct download of figures from the site into PowerPoint slides. For more information on these and other capabilities, browse our tools and features section for more information on these and other services

On ScienceCareers.org, unregistered guests can take advantage of basic functions such as job searching and selected other services. You will need to register with the site, however, to enjoy enhanced services such as saved searches, resume posting, and more. You may also need an additional registration to search for grants. [Note:: At present, these registrations are separate from the registration covering your access to other parts of the Science site.]