#UOSM2008 Topic 5: Open Access – opening the flood gates to poor quality content?
Explain the advantages and disadvantages to a content producer of making their materials freely available online
Open access means something is free, immediately available online with full re-use rights (Shockey & Eisen, 2012). Open access can cover a wide scope of materials; from videos, pictures, website templates, medical journals to academic tools such as lecture slides and practice questions. In terms of content producer, this post will focus on those who produce content for journal articles, namely educational and scientific journals.
One of the main advantages of making materials freely available online, rather than behind a paywall, is that content can reach a wider audience. An increase in audience will hopefully lead to an increase in credit and use of the content producers work (Geib, 2013).
This wider audience further helps to promote the sharing of knowledge and continuous development of ideas and theories, ensuring that journals and articles are increasingly monitored and built upon.
But is it sustainable to make content free?
Perhaps the largest disadvantage of making content freely available online with open access for a content producer is the decrease in revenue (Geib, 2013). When an end user doesn’t have to pay to access the content, the content producer may lose out on valuable fees. Further to this, it can be argued that the traditional paid access models ensure that both content producers and the publishers are adequately compensated for their work.
A disadvantage for the publisher is the question of whether open access models can sustainably support the research publication infrastructure, and a disadvantage for the content producer is whether they would have to subsidise this lost revenue.
However, according to the Study of Open Access Publishing (2011), when researchers publish in fee-based open access journals, most of the time the fees are paid by funders (59%) or by universities (24%). Only 12% of the time they are paid by authors. Whilst this is still a disadvantage for 12%, it is perhaps not as severe a problem as anticipated.
Are content producers put off by lack of quality control?
A disadvantage which can be seen to detract from the benefits of making materials available through open access is the belief that open access journals and content are low in quality (Suber, 2013). The publication of more articles may be encouraged which may have a negative impact on overall quality, as a large portion of revenue stems from publication fees, so more journals may be published to increase this (Geib, 2013).
Whilst this is a clear disadvantage and detracts from the advantages of making materials freely available, Thomson Scientific (2004) found that in every field of the sciences there was at least one open access title that ranked at or near the top of its field in citation impact. 10 years on, it is likely that the number of high-quality open access content has only increased further.
The benefits of open access for individuals, educational institution and employers are clear. Journals and content can be extremely costly to subscribe to or access, so it is plain to see why open access materials would be favourable. Clearly there are still considerations of content producers and publishers to the benefits of open access, and it remains to be seen whether it is sustainable to adopt such a business model.
References:
Geib, A. (2013), Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Access, [Online], Available: http://www.edanzediting.com/blog/advantages_and_disadvantages_open_access#.U2afUfldWVO [Accessed 3rd May 2014]
Study of Open Access Publishing, (2011), Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think about Open Access Publishing, [Online], Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5260 [Accessed 2nd May 2014]
Suber, P., (2013), Open access: six myths put to rest, [Online], Available: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/21/open-access-myths-peter-suber-harvard [Accessed 3rd May 2014]
Thomson Scientific, (2004), Analysis of Impact Factors and Citation Patterns A citation study from Thomson Scientific, [Online], Available: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/m/pdfs/openaccesscitations2.pdf [Accessed 2nd May 2014]
Shockey, N. and Eisen, J., (2012),. Open Access Explained!, [Online], Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L5rVH1KGBCY [Accessed 2nd May 2014]
