Open Access on a Roll

“In an editorial this month, the magazine argues that research funded by taxpayers or charities ought to be available free to the public. ‘This would both broaden access to research and strengthen the hand of open access journals, since many researchers would then be unable to publish results in closed ones,'’ the magazine says. It endorses the intention of the giant UK funding body, the Wellcome Trust, to consider sanctions for the 45 per cent of scientists who receive grants but do not comply with its open access policy. These scientists might not get grant renewals, Sir Mark Walport, the trust director, told the Guardian newspaper. Another option would be to require universities to confirm that any papers flowing from a grant are freely accessible before releasing the final installment of grant money. Heartened by the success of the open access journal PLoS ONE, the Wellcome Trust and partners are setting up a new open access journal called eLife. More than 9,000 scholars have signed up to the boycott of the commercial publisher Elsevier, which in the eyes of many came to symbolise oligopoly profiteering and opposition to open access mandates. As the boycott gained momentum, Elsevier abandoned its support for the US Research Works Act ... The Economist editorial says the profit margins of publishers such as Elsevier are ‘possible because the journals' content is largely provided free by researchers, and the academics who peer-review their papers are usually unpaid volunteers. The journals are then sold to the very universities that provide the free content and labour. For publicly funded research, the result is that the academics and taxpayers who were responsible for its creation have to pay to read it. This is not merely absurd and unjust; it also hampers education and research.’''