#UOSM2008 Topic 5: Open access to online materials for all – utopian dream or unstoppable force?
The Internet has opened up many possibilities to share material as well as opinions online. This is the essence of the Web 2.0 where information can be shared freely and more people can access information. Open access to online materials is a massive topic, so I have decided to focus on open access specifically for education. Firstly to get you all thinking, I want to pose the question, if we used to pay for physical newspapers to access information, why is it different online? Why do we expect to be able to access this news for free?
From an economics background, I believe that the internet should act as a market place where goods and services should be exchanged (Colberg, 2010). However information which is accessed online may be seen as a public good, which should be free due to the positive externalities it provides. UK science reported that there were plans to make journals freely available to all by the government with “real economic and social benefits” (Ghosh, 2012). This is contrary to a study that claims that 90% of media online content in the next three years will be paid for (Lepitak, 2013).
Advantages
A number of advantages exist for content producers to make their materials freely available online:
o Recognition of research with higher visibility (righttoresearch.org, n.d)
o Contribution to further research in the field
Disadvantages
There are also disadvantages for content producers:
o If not approved and published by a third party (journal publisher) it may lack reliability and lose trust by academics.
o Fear of misinterpreting the information or plagiarism.
However although the advantages and disadvantages to the content producers are important, it is equally as important to consider the benefits that open access information online can further the society. This will benefit the society through increased information, where it can further research and bring benefit to the economy as a whole, and where technology may be developed as a result of combined research. The education sector is one that can benefit enormously, through up-to-date research and therefore understanding on current research in their studies.
Personal
From my experience of conducting research through my dissertation, there is a lot of information online. However the high prices of some journals and the fact that you don’t know if it is useful until after purchase was a massive problem. This meant I did not pay and therefore may have missed out on potential insightful research others have done. I have seen screens like this many a time when looking for literature on my topic of research:
(Sage) Example of subscription for journal
My own personal opinion that arises from this topic is that, why do researchers bother researching if the costs are made so high that no one in society can benefit from it? This surely is effective as not having the research exist. However providing it completely free, with only the government paying may result in problems of people taking advantage and claiming the work as their own. Rather than having content free online, there must be a better system so that the right people pay at the right price for information, this is specific for the education sector.
References
Ghost, P. (2012) UK science to be freely available, [Online], Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18860276 [Accessed 29th April 2014].
Colberg, J. (2010) ‘Why information should remain free’, [Online], Available: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2010/01/why_information_should_remain_free/ [Accessed 4th April 2014].
Leptikah, S. (2012) 90% of online content to be held behind paywalls in three years media company survey suggests, [Online], Available: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/04/12/90-online-content-be-held-behind-paywalls-three-years-media-company-survey-suggests [Accessed 3rd April 2014].
Righttoresearch.org (n.d) Why Open Access? [Online], Available: http://www.righttoresearch.org/learn/whyOA/index.shtml#Researchers [Accessed 30th April 2014].
Filed under: Topic 5 Tagged: Education, Free, information, internet, Journals, Open Access, Positive Externality, UOSM2008 
