Open Access and Academic Publishing

"Independent information services professional Ian Lovecy suggests that there are a number of questions – philosophical and practical – which need to be answered before open access could be a sound and sustainable method of academic publishing. This post makes no attempt to answer them, but rather to identify them and perhaps open up some of the issues involved to discussion.

In the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) a higher weight will be given to items published open access; in the following REF it has been suggested that nothing that is not open access will be accepted. There are a number of questions – philosophical and practical – that need to be answered before open access could be a sound and sustainable method of academic publishing. This paper makes no attempt to answer them, merely to identify them and perhaps open up some of the issues involved."