Open Access Will Bring Scientific Discovery More Freely Into the Public Domain

Since the inception of open access movements in the early 2000s, many things have happened around the scientific community and the scholarly publishing world. Universities and research institutions have gradually embraced the principles of open access and hence put institutional repositories in place. Many of them are European and American universities, though. Countries have adopted open access policies which required all tax payers funded researches accessible free of charge for end users.

Despite initial resistance to the movement, heavy weight scholarly publishers such as Elsevier and Nature have shown, though it is limited, interest at least for the time being to go with hybrid model of journal publishing. Publishers that adopt hybrid model have both open access and access restricted journal articles. Those classic publishers use a mix of gold open access approach and embargo terms to give limited access to some articles that they publish in an open access environemnt. With the first one, they charge article processing charges (APC), authors pay the publishers for the article they publish on one of their scientific journals so as to give end users free access to the published articles. This is Gold open access approach- here authors carry burden that comes with article publishing and dessimination.

The second approach is which is embargo period a way through which end users access articles free of charge once embargo period is lifted- embargo period usually lasts for one year. While papers are under embargo period, access to those articles is only possible through subscription.

Open access movement is growing. Open access journals are flourishing-both in developed and developing countries. Yet still, after more than a decade long journal with theories and practices of open access, many remained skeptical about the quality of open access journals. The cynics are not silenced despite gains made and quality demonstrated by major players in the field: BioMed and PlosOne managed to build trust and gain confidence from the scientific community. The number of open access citation and download has shown remarkable increase. Their impact factor has improved significantly. Though, all open access journals are not of the same standard and do not adhere to strict scientific articles publishing code of conduct such as undergoing rigorous peer-review process.

For more on this subject read an article from the Economist.

Thanks for reading this article. Please comment on it and also do not forget to share it.

Related Post

covid-19, coronavirus, open access
5 Must-Reads to Understand How Open Access Can Shape Research on Covid-19

COVID-19 could kill the for-profit science publishing model. That would be a good thing. by Michael Hilrzik LA Times, March 3, 2020 “Of all the ways the current coronavirus crisis has upended commonplace routines — such as disrupting global supply chains and forcing workers to stay at home — one of the most positive is […]

Read more
november 2019, open access, must reads
Weekly Open Access Must-Reads (11-15 November 2019)

A selection of this week’s news, opinions and feature articles about open access, academia and the publishing industry.  1. Room for everyone’s talent Erkennen en waarderen in de wetenschap gaan drastisch veranderen (in Dutch) By Sicco de Knecht in Science Guide Date: 13 November 2019 Read it here in English or here in Dutch   […]

Read more
International OA week 2018: Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge

Open access has increasingly become the new norm. Countries and research funders are embracing open access. Many set targets to reach 100% open access before 2020. However, issues related to equitable sharing, diversity and inclusion is not fully addressed, according to a statement by SPARC. Open access should serve the need of all scholarly communities […]

Read more

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.