Open access: Stakes are high at the debates over the future of scholarship - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

"By putting the burden on scholars and postgraduate students through the creation of submission fee, we would be doing a disservice to our pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, and we would almost certainly contribute to widening the gap between scholars and postgraduate students affiliated to rich institutions in wealthy countries and those who carry out their research work in spite of limited resources and under very difficult conditions in the rest of the world. After all academic knowledge and academic outputs are public goods that we all - scholars, postgraduate students and even undergraduate students like Christie - should be able to enjoy."