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The Internet has become an indispensable tool for communication and coordination, yet the debate of Open Access (OA), free for all and holding back innovation is ever rife. While the purposes OA is to allow one to read a publication over the Internet, print it and further develop and/or distrbute the findings without any restrictions (Björk, 2004). We often find ourselves spending hours researching an academic essay, searching through online journals to find that perfect article on the topic, only to discover seconds later that the online material doesn’t comes with free access.
Why do researchers bother researching if the costs are made so high that only a handful in the society can benefit from it?
According to global pricing consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners, days where we enjoy free OA materials will not last much longer. Their recently conducted survey has found that in the coming years as much as 90% of online content will find itself behind a paywall (Lepitak, 2013). This is however, contrary to a article reported by the BBC News that the government are developing plans to make publicly funded research results freely available to all (Ghosh, 2012). This video will clearly explained the importance of OA to you.
(Shockey and Eisen, 2012)
What are the advantages and disadvantages to consider?
Advantages
Access to materials and learning. Promotes the sharing of knowledge, development of established ideas, and to enhance future materials.
Increased Readership / Circulation Speed. Widen the readership of the author’s work as the research is more discoverable online. Online information are also made available more readily ensuring the latest research is always available as compared to published journals.
Cost Saving / Convenient for Students. Beneficial to students who are self finance and most students now would prefer to access information online than heading down to the library for the hardcopy.
Disadvantages
Author’s Fear. Risk of information, research being misused, misinterpreted and/or plagiarism.
Recognition of Research. If not approved and published by a third party (journal publisher) it may lack reliability and lose trust by academics. As there is a myth that OA journals are much lower in term of quality as compared to paywall journal. However, this has been shown to be untrue as reported by The Guardian.
As a student, I am in strong favour of OA, as we can all relate to the frustration of having to read an interesting abstract to a journal, only to find that we get denied access to the full content unless we pay up to a certain sum and you have no idea if its actually useful until you purchase it. While OA also ensures greater accessibility to allow the progression and improvement of important research.
As digitization continues, I cannot envisage anything but a higher demand for OA materials and a greater resistance to pay-based restrictions.
(Word Count: 440)
References
Bj̦rk, B. (2004). Open access to scientific publications Рan analysis of the barriers to change?. [online] Information Research. Available at: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10227/647/bjork.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Ghosh, P. (2012). UK science to be freely available. [online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18860276 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Lepitak, S. (2013). 90% of online content to be held behind paywalls in three years media company survey suggests. [online] The Drum. Available at: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/04/12/90-online-content-be-held-behind-paywalls-three-years-media-company-survey-suggests [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Shockey, N. and Eisen, J. (2012). Open Access Explained!. [online] YouTube. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rVH1KGBCY [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Suber, P. (2013). Open access: six myths to put to rest. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/21/open-access-myths-peter-suber-harvard [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
torws 
Hey Tor!
Cool Powtoon video! It makes understanding your views a lot more interesting! Love your blog design as well, the “snow” makes me look forward to Christmas a lot more now! *laughs*
You mention that one advantage of OA is the sharing of knowledge and ideas, but lets say students are the ones mainly using the materials. Then it might not be of much use to the author as students might not have the right knowledge to have a “intellectual” discussion. What do you think?
I agree that there are many advantages to OA for us students and content provider, but why then do you think they would hide their materials behind paywalls? Could it be lack of funds, or maybe, they only want to gain the attention of others in their same line of profession that would pay to read their articles?
Looking forward to your views! Great job!!
Yu Ting 😀
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Hey YT,
Thanks for your response!! Haha, the theme is called RYU and it comes along with snow feature apparently for the the Xmas Festive!!
In my opinion, as mentioned in my post that one of the key advantage of OA is increased readership. Personally, I believed this readership can only be increase if the specific reader is interested in that respective subject/topic. This will bring me to my point that students then who are using the materials will most likely be studying or interested in that particular field of study, therefore “intellectual” discussion shouldn’t be a problem. Ultimately, it is the content producer duty to correct any respective discussion or content by the students to ensure his work is not misuse or misinterpret.
For your second question, the content producer could potentially have the fear that if their research not approved and published by a third party (journal publisher) it may lack reliability and lose trust by academics. I do agreed with you, that it could be the lack of funds as we all know someone have got to pay for the research.
I personally believe all researcher will work so hard do develop and discover new ideas, they would want the recognition and for people to appreciate and thrive off their work. Therefore, lack of funding will most likely be the cause for hiding behind the paywall.
Hope I answer your question. (Man, they sure are tough!!)
Thanks for dropping by 🙂
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Hey Seong Ge!
Thumbs up for your post! I also read about the recent article by Simon-Kucher & Partners that days where we enjoy free OA materials will not last much longer. Considering the mass population who supported Open Access these days, I was thinking if the article will create an uproar? Thankfully you searched another article that is contrary to it and balanced out the tension.
You mentioned in one of the advantages is that students get to save cost, how about the disadvantage for author or publisher to pay a price to get their work published? Is it true to say that students like us are taking free sources of information for granted and as long as it’s free for us, it doesn’t matter if people are paying a price for our convenience and cost saving?
Previously I was discussing with Corrine about Gold and Green Open Access and since you are very much an Open Access supporter like us, I would love to introduce this concept that little has talked about in their posts to you! Read about it here! http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/topics/opentechnologies/openaccess/green-gold.aspx
In your opinion, which Open Access, Gold or Green is the way to go and why?
All the best.
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Hi Zoie,
Publisher may no longer need to worried much about the cost, as if you have read the BBC news article. It is mentioned that under the new proposals the government will pay publishers a fee each time a paper is published. I believe that it is right for the government to make public taxpayer-funded research accessible. Ultimately, all this research are supported through public purse. It is only right for students like us to have access to those information, which we will in turn help to contribute by allow academics and businesses to develop and commercialise their research more easily and herald a new era of academic discovery. It is however important to educate students to cite their work to give due credit for the content producer to show appreciation to their work (ethical to do so) and recognition.
On you second question, this is a tough one. I would in my opinion choose gold. As it is considered to be the most sustainable method in the long term, and recommended by the Finch report, the gold route involves publishing in a fully open access journal or website. Through this gold route, authors may need to pay for their work to be published, however this is often provided for by the research grant. Some institutions even pay these fees out of a central fund to account for the differences between research councils. I would like to think that work coming from Gold access will be more credible without any infringement of copyright.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/420454.article
I hope I answer your question 🙂
Thank you once again.
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Hello Tor!
Likewise, recently I have always been finding myself excited when i finally found an useful essay that might aid in my research however only to find that it’s only the ‘abstract’ section of it which makes it so frustrating that i have to take a longer time to find the information i need because 70% of the time i have to pay to read more.
The report you’ve provided by ‘The Guardian’ was very helpful! It’s common that people will tend to think that unpaid journals/reports are of lower quality because or else, what are we paying for when we spend on paid essays? I’m glad that the myth is untrue and hope that someone will do something to encourage open access like maybe through government fundings. Who do you think have the power to do so?
Lastly this made me interested if there are actually organisations that are helping to salvage this issue, guess what i found! There’s actually a community, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition(SPARC) that creates an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. – If you’re interested, you can check this link out : http://www.sparc.arl.org/initiatives/funds
Great post, cool template! Hear from you soon (-:
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Hi Sherdale!
Thanks for the comment!! Happy to hear that I’m not the only one facing the frustration *Fist Pump*
I’m glad that the article by The Guardian could come in handy for you in your summary.
For your question on funding through government, I have found further evidence in the following website. Under new proposals, the government will pay publishers a fee each time a paper is published and in return, the research will be available to those who wish to see it. Check them out!!
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/investing-in-research-development-and-innovation/supporting-pages/making-taxpayer-funded-research-accessible
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18860276
Thanks for sharing the article on SPARC with me. It is a relief to know that there are organisations doing their best to support Open access. It does help to give me further insight on their initiatives.
Thanks for dropping by my blog :))
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Hey Tor!
It is indeed a very insightful post! I like the way you question a lot, which has given me a chance to reflect better on this issue.
Open Access has widened our visions and options in acquire information for learning and researching. However, it also provides benefits like increased visibility and recognition to the content author. For instance, I would normally share the articles and journals that I find meaningful through social media to gather insights of the people contacted. This may help the author in exploiting opportunities and further development by initiating discussion with people from different background.
On the other hand, I agree with you that accreditation may be the main concern of the content creator as the risk of information being use without recognition is high. Do you think that this is the main reason causing the rise of paywall in the future? Or are you more biased in supporting the claim BBC News made, that the government is developing plans to make publicly funded research results freely available to all?
Daphne
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Hi Daphne,
Thanks for the response! Happy to know that you have gain something after reading my blog post.
In my opinion, accreditation is only one of the many reasons for a content producer to go behind paywall. As I personally believe that most researcher will definitely want their research to be read and use for further development of that respective field of study. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to spend so much effort and time researching only to hide in behind paywall, allowing only a handful access to it. (Doesn’t make sense right) Thus, I believe the main reason the main culprit for this will be “Funding”. As we all know, all research come at a cost and this cost will have to be bear by someone at the end of the day.
While I still dream for that day to come where all material is open access, but I know its (impossible). Whether the online material is open access, very much depend on the context and motive. Where for example, a producer producing a content with the motive for revenue will definitely implement a paywall.
I hope I answer your question :))
Cheers to the last post!!
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