In most cases, you must be a subscriber, either individually, institutionally or as part of a consortium. You need an ID and password to get in, or have to first subscribe online if that is permitted. But this is the general and the specific varies greatly over time and circumstances. For example, it s traditional on HighWire to premiere a periodical with a Free Trial in which anybody on the Net can have full access. That period may last as long as a year or as short as a couple of months.
Helps work out the bugs.
Any such freebie is noted with Free Trial by the journal s name on the main HighWire page. In most cases, the free trial ends and it s subscriber-only time. But over the past six months, two interesting trends have occurred on Highwire. First, a few periodicals now allow non-subscribers to pay for articles immediately with a credit card. You are granted 24 hour access to the article.