Topic 5 = Open Access (OA)
Imagine you have done a ground-breaking research from your years of hard work, which was funded by a government or university. On one hand you want to share with people who are interested but the distribution expenses is a barrier for you. On the other hand readers can’t access this content whereas the very money funded for the research was from their own pocket i.e. in terms of tax or tuition fees.
In this blog I am going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages to a content producer of making their materials freely available online.
Below is a video explaining how Open Access works that I believe is a solution to the problem aforementioned.
Advantages
The main key idea behind Open Access is that articles are freely available to anyone who is interested in reading. Below is a list of some advantages provided by Sparc Europe website [1].
- Free for all
- Immediate visibility for research output to their audience.
- It access information from everywhere over Internet.
- Increased access for target audience.
- Readers are not restricted to access any materials.
- Saved millions pounds for government and universities.
- Taxpayers get value for their money.
Indeed the list can go on and on…
The images above provide evidence that there are more effective readers who use open access then subscribe channels.
Disadvantage
Its all seems good when we can access almost everything for free but nothing comes free and so is Open Access. Some cost has to be paid be someone and with open access that appears to be the publisher, however they are usually well paid by their sponsors so end users doesn’t have to pay anymore. Below are some bullet points explained in the Edanz website [2].
- Publication fee (as the reader doesn’t pay anything but the someone have to pay for publication).
- Lack of quality control
- Sustainability
- How does the author make their money? [3].
Summary
As we all are now university student about to graduate. We all might get into publication whatsoever so to conclude, I suggest that if you have a good content you want to share with people, you need to find top journals and open access so your end users can access that for free, also immediate access with full-reuse right. So everyone can see and cite your paper that way research can continue. Here a video that summarize everything for us.
References
[1]http://sparceurope.org/open-access/benefits-of-open-access/
[2]http://www.edanzediting.com/blog/advantages_and_disadvantages_open_access#.VUFhxs5WK3I
