Why Open Access is good for the scientific community | Why two K's?

abernard102@gmail.com 2015-03-09

Summary:

"Jawaharlal Nehru, in his time as the first Prime Minister of our country, arguably contributed more to science than any other leader has done since then. He wanted technology to flourish across every nook and cranny of a nation that was ravaged by colonial rule for decades. Scientific research, he thought, will be one of the prime-movers when it came to driving to India’s growth forward. Though our scientists’ contribution towards Science has been greater than ever, in terms of the magnitude of publications in reputed journals across the globe, India suffers from a problem that is not uncommon in all of the developing countries. The research that is meant to be a means to tackle hunger and poverty has been, somewhat paradoxically, deprived from the reach of the common man, intentionally or otherwise. What good is money spent on science, if the common man does not have the right to know what science is capable of doing for the betterment of his life? And that is where Open Access and the role of science writing become crucial. Origins of the call to establish Open Access in science can be traced back to Steven Harnad, professor of cognitive science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, who came up with a simple yet radical proposition: since researchers’ only interest in publishing is to share their ideas with as many of their peers as possible, the price tag of journal subscriptions imposes an unfair restriction on that sharing ... So far as India is concerned, there is still a lack of clarity about the benefit of and need for open access, amongst researchers and officials in policymaking bodies, and amongst funding agencies. There has to be a conscious effort on part of the researchers to not forego their rights to disclose research findings by signing all the copyright documents that their publishers give them ... Crowd-funded research projects like PolyMath & Galaxy Zoo, are a happy consequence of open access, and are examples of how every Tom, Dick and Hari can even contribute to the growth of science, rather than merely knowing about it ..."

Link:

https://arrivedatlast.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/why-open-access-is-good-for-the-scientific-community/

From feeds:

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

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.india oa.open_science oa.crowd oa.lay oa.impact oa.south

Date tagged:

03/09/2015, 08:06

Date published:

03/09/2015, 04:06