Is Open Access for Everyone? | Katina Magazine

"In addition to analyzing the NASEM data, I also classified more than 3500 “stories” of OA use collected from Harvard University’s DASH institutional repository. These stories are part of a program titled “Your Story Matters” that asks contributors to describe how they benefit from access to scholarly research.

I discovered that the population using open access research includes not only students but professionals, like teachers, nurses, and NGO workers, motivated to improve their services by leveraging the best available evidence (41 percent of the data set), as well as retirees and a long list of other readers outside of formal research environments who seek out these scholarly resources for personal enrichment and to become better informed members of society (37 percent). The text analysis also revealed a substantial number of amateur researchers, such as citizen scientists and those seeking sources for independent book projects, as well as international students and other “constrained academics” who are not able to gain access via their local institutions (22 percent)...."