Open Access: Utopian Dream or Unstoppable Force?

“Science works on an open interchange of ideas, and if things aren’t available then ideas aren’t being interchanged.” – Professor Chris McManus, University College London (2007)

Key Perspectives (2006) define open access as “the free (gratis) online availability of the research results that scholars give away themselves, provided by authors upon acceptance for publication and made permanently available without restrictions on use.”

The internet has become an invaluable tool for communication and coordination, and the debate of open access, free for all and holding back innovation is ever rife. In terms of open access for scientific purposes, it allows one to read a publication over the internet, print it and further develop and/or distribute the findings without any restrictions (Bjork, 2004).

There are two components to Open Access and the definition of unrestricted rights, free to read and free to re-use, with the later being of use to scientists and researchers looking to push boundaries within their respected fields.

One argument is that all levels of education, academic progress and scientific development rely heavily on the availability of resources, as professors can only teach with what resources they have (Cham, 2012). However, a recent study suggests that by 2016, 90% of online media content will be protected by a pay wall (Lepitak, 2013). And so the question is, Open Access: Utopian dream or unstoppable force?

As a content producer there are certain advantages and disadvantages to consider:

Benefits:

• Important to scientific progress. Scientists want their information to be read, talked about and cited; why would they want to hide their discoveries behind paywalls?
• Open access promotes the sharing of knowledge, development of established ideas, and to enhance future materials.
• Ensures better assessment, monitoring and management of research as well as more rapid and efficient progress.
• Open access allows greater visibility, and thus, greater access for students for example to have a greater impact on academic development.

 

Disadvantages:

• Risk of information and/or research being misused and/or misinterpreted
• Sustainability issues, currently taxpayers often fund research projects, could open access models support the research publication infrastructure? (Geib, 2013)

Personally, as a student, I am in favour of open access, as we can all relate to the frustration of having read an interesting abstract to a journal, only to find that we are denied access to the full paper unless we pay. Additionally, on a bigger scale, in terms of scientific developments, open access will mean greater accessibility to allow the progression and improvement of important research.

As the cost of journal subscriptions continue to rise, outpacing inflation by over 250% over the past thirty years (Cham, 2012), I believe that, along with digitization, demand for open access will continue to increase.

 

References

Bjork, BC. (2004) Open access to scientific publications – an analysis of the
barriers to change? Information Research. Volume. 9. No.2. Finland [Online] Available at: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10227/647/bjork.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed 03 May 2014]

Cham, J. (2012) Open Access Explained. [Online] Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L5rVH1KGBCY [Accessed: 02 May 2014]

Geib, A. (2013) Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Access. Edanz Group. Japan. [Online] Available at: http://www.edanzediting.com/blog/advantages_and_disadvantages_open_access#.U2aJmPldU8V [Accessed 04 May 2014]

McManus, C.  (2007) Benefits of Open Access. BioMed Central [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2JT23E1bRE [Accessed: 01 May 2014]

Leptikah, S. (2012) 90% of online content to be held behind paywalls in three years media company survey suggests [Online] Available at at: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/04/12/90-online-content-be-held-behind-paywalls-three-years-media-company-survey-suggests [Accessed: 03 May 2014]