UOSM2008 Topic 5 -Online Availability of Materials

Explain the advantages and disadvantages to a content producer of making their materials freely available online

Like myself, many who will read this post will also be students themselves and so will know the familiar frustration of reading the abstract of an academic article, deciding it would be beneficial to include in your work and then coming up against the payment barrier to access the full article. This clip brilliantly explains the systems behind the barriers to open access (OA) of materials:

It goes on to explain the collective benefits of open access to content producers and education in order to build knowledge and catalyse progress. I agree with this somewhat humanitarian idea of reciprocity in open access, I would also argue that as well as aiding production of ideas more available research also leads to additional benefits such as reduced costs to researchers; as ideas can be formulated with greater background knowledge, less highly speculative, fruitless ideas are taken forward and funds can be used elsewhere.

Some projects, such as JISC, encouraging open access of publically funded research, though arguably privately funded research doesn’t have the same ‘moral’ funding obligation to make material accessible. According to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) two thirds of research and development carried out in scientific and technical fields is carried out by private industries -only 10% originates from government.

Alexander Brown argues in his article publishers are not necessarily raking in profits as the previous clip suggests. There are new costs associated with managing the mass of digital media which is growing around 3% a year. For example, the increasing need for editors, educating customers in finding what they need and sourcing good quality content; he states outsourcing the marketing and accessibility logistics further aids scientists as it allows them to focus on research more. So, a disadvantage of OA to a content producer would be that in order to achieve the same level of visibility that a publisher could provide they would have to sacrifice their time and resources to do so.

Another possible disadvantage to the individual content producer: does adding your work to the ever growing pool of freely available knowledge can cause content producers to feel their efforts have been curtailed?

Literally anyone can put information online, to have work published in a distinguished journal may give the work a certain precedence as a ‘reliable source’ (journals frequently referred to as reliable sources [1][2][3]). Also, as the previous point mentions, researchers may not be able to market their work as successfully as a publisher -which will inevitably charge for access.

So, in summary, content producers making their materials freely available online:

Advantages:

• Collective benefit in progressing knowledge
  -aids production of new ideas from combining past research
• Collective benefit in reducing research costs -research to back up an idea as worth pursuing more easily available
• Fairness of equal access, especially with government funded research

Disadvantages:

• The researchers time and resources taken to make materials OA could be better allocated to research itself
• Prestigious journal adds precedence to work which isn’t as easily achieved in OA, e.g. reliable source and well marketed
• Content producers are likely to be funded privately so may not be allowed to make the content OA, financially disadvantaged if they do so