Topic 5: Summary on open access and its advantages & disadvantages #UOSM2008

The way in which peer-learning allows you to broaden your understanding of a topic through the different ways people can engage with the same issue has in my opinion been the cornerstone of this module.

 

This topic was no exception as the theme of Open Access was discussed not only in an academic context but also in a journalistic. Alysia produced a comprehensive post detailing the advantages and disadvantages of paywalls in a journalistic context. This was not an interpretation of the question I had personally considered but is completely valid. On a personal note since I have become more actively on LinkedIn since starting this module I have been personally affected by media paywalls trying to follow links to the Financial Times.

 

Returning to an academic context, my initial post on the topic was heavily weighed in favour of Open Access materials due both to personal opinion and information that I had found. Reading other’s posts it seemed that was a huge consensus among us in favour of Open Access in an academic context and many of us had found more advantages than disadvantages.

 

I think that the mentality of feeling justified to have access to something for free and at will is a very difficult to step away from. State-sponsored education and public lending libraries started a trend with education and medias that the Internet fulfills today through both legal (and illegal means – as George discussed in his blog). While the main subject of this topic is content producer let us not forget that students today are paying almost £10,000, surely for this amount of money these should be able to get access to all resources. And yet the reality of the fees structuring means that universities don’t really benefit from these increased fees so cannot really afford to pay for access to more resources, which leaves us with Open Access. Yet as I discussed in my comments on Yee Ping’s blog and Jake’s blog there are still several obstacles standing in the way of digitisation and Open Access.

 

There is no doubt as consumers we all want free content but for content producers making content available free to all or Open Access has financial and ethical implications. From our collective research into the disadvantages it seems unlikely that in terms of education we will ever find ourselves in a situation where Open Access is available to everything. Given all of this it is perhaps then not so surprising that surveys suggest that content is becoming more and more likely to find itself behind a paywall despite our wishes as consumers to the contrary.

 

Finally I would like to point you (perhaps again) in the direction of this website that my coursemate Rebecca shared on my previous blog. The website forms a campaign to increase Open Access to academic resources and through using their non-intrusive free browser addon you can help to map the global effects of paywalls.