Open and Shut?: The Open Access Big Deal: Back to the Future | Richard Poynder

ab1630's bookmarks 2018-03-29

Summary:

"On a superficial reading open access is intended to do no more than what it says on the can: provide an internet-based scholarly communication system in which research is made available sans paywall – in other words, a system offering improved accessibility over the traditional subscription system.  On a deeper reading, however, we learn that the OA movement was a response to the unsustainably high costs of the subscription system and that it was based on a conviction that open access would be a more cost-effective way of sharing research – in other words, a system offering improved affordability. Kenneth Frazier, 2001 In addition, it was argued, open access would be a more transparent way of doing things than the subscription-based system.  Essentially, the argument went like this: If researchers paid an article-processing charge (APC) every time they wanted to publish a paper (rather than librarians paying the costs of publishing by purchasing subscriptions to large bundles of journals courtesy of the so-called Big Deal), then not only could research papers be made freely available to all, but authors would be able to make price-based decisions when choosing where to publish.  This price transparency, argued OA advocates, would introduce market forces into scholarly publishing that are absent in the subscription system. It would also allow new open access publishers to enter the market with lower-priced products, which would help drive down prices. In short, OA advocates promised that open access would not only provide greater accessibility but a more cost-effective scholarly communication system, thereby solving the affordability problem that has long dogged scholarly publishing. And to achieve this, they said, transparency is key...."

Link:

https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-open-access-big-deal-back-to-future.html

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » ab1630's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.economics_of oa.best_practices oa.recommendations oa.big_deals oa.prices oa.business_models oa.projekt_deal oa.partial oa.obstacles oa.uk oa.europe oa.negotiations oa.finland oa.netherlands oa.germany oa.publishers oa.libraries oa.trends oa.vsnu

Date tagged:

03/29/2018, 17:14

Date published:

03/29/2018, 13:15