Open access must be open at both ends | Exchanges

abernard102@gmail.com 2015-01-29

Summary:

" ... Gold open access, which requires an upfront fee paid to publishers to allow articles to be made freely available, is increasingly becoming the favored model by UK research councils. The argument that publically funded research should be publically available is a compelling one and pay walls represent a barrier to innovation and scientific progress. However, the sheer scale of the literature and rate at which it is growing means that identifying relevant and reliable research is a challenging one. Free access to something you don’t know exists and can’t trust is of no value to anyone. If publishers can add value to the scientific process by creating innovative platforms to search and access content, efficient mechanisms to scrutinize, administer and promote worthwhile and groundbreaking research, then surely this is a service worth paying for. The danger of this model is that upfront fees provide short term incentives for journals to accept papers from anyone who has the money to pay, regardless of their scientific value or accuracy.  In the longer term, damage to the reputation of journals, and researchers, that take this approach will mean such papers are not worth the silicon they are encoded in and the market should correct itself. Opening up science to a larger audience by removing pay walls is a good idea but reputable publishers still have an important role to play in ensuring the public have easy access to the high quality science they paid for. However, shifting the costs of publishing from the reader to the authors brings access problems of its own. Having always worked in institutions with good access to subscription journals and in a field where open access journals aren’t well recognized, the cost of publication has never factored into my decision of where to publish. For well-established academics with access to the considerable funds required to make publications open access in the best journals this is unlikely to change. However, where funds are limited, the question of whether you can afford to publish may become an increasing factor alongside the quality of your science. Funding for positions is often scraped together from multiple grants meaning some researchers won’t have access to a pot of money assigned for publishing open access. Research is often published years after a thesis has been written or a grant has run out. Many early career fellowships have fixed stipends which often scarcely cover salary and consumables let alone publishing costs meaning fellows will be more dependent on PI’s and departments. With publications being such a vital metric for individual students and post-docs (as well as their supervisors) it is important that group politics doesn’t become the determining factor of whose research gets published. If we are to go down the gold open access route and ensure the best research is brought to the widest possible audience, we need a fair funding process that provides open access for authors as well as readers."

Link:

http://exchanges.wiley.com/blog/2015/01/27/open-access-must-be-open-at-both-ends/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.mandates oa.gold oa.hybrid oa.fees oa.economics_of oa.policies oa.journals

Date tagged:

01/29/2015, 09:54

Date published:

01/29/2015, 04:54