The inexorable rise of open access scientific publishing | Stephen Curry | Science | guardian.co.uk

"Read all about it: academic publishing is changing faster than anyone has realised, according to a new study reported today in BMC Medicine...   According to results published today byLaasko and Björk, over half of all research papers may now be available through open access.

The academic publishing game has changed irrevocably.  The change does not mean that academics have embraced the free-for-all file-sharing mentality that is the bug-bear of the music business. Rather it reflects the deep-seated amateur ethos of scholars, who have always seen the work of producing and reviewing their research findings as an intrinsic part of the job... the opportunities provided by the web for instant distribution has fused with the principle that publicly funded research should be freely available and propelled the open access movement to the forefront of academic publishing. The escape from the physical bounds of publishing on paper should also help us to realise significantly better value for money in this core part of the research enterprise.   The rise of open access has been hampered by opposition from some publishers, who see it as a threat to a lucrative subscription model, and by some quarters of the research community fearful of jettisoning an established process of publishing in familiar journals.  In July this year science minister David Willetts warmly welcomed the report of the working group led by Dame Janet Finch on how to expand access to publicly funded research. The government sees open access as a way of accelerating the free distribution of scientific results, not just to researchers but also to businesses looking to innovate new technologies, and as a necessary mechanism for developing new computer-based text and data-mining methods for interrogating research results with a breadth and depth that no individual could hope to match.  Finch's recommendations are now being implemented as policy by Research Councils UK ... The policy is not without its critics, many of whom are concerned about the cost implications, since the new policy has a strong preference for facilitating free access by paying publishers an 'article processing charge' (APC)...  A cheaper green route is also available, whereby the author usually deposits an unformatted version of the paper in a university repository without incurring a publisher's charge, but it remains to be seen if this will be adopted in practice.  Universities and research institutions are only now beginning to work out how to implement the new policy (recentlyclarified by the RCUK).   They should be encouraged by Laasko and Björk's study which, fittingly, is published in an open access journal. The Finnish researchers found not only that nearly 17% of research papers worldwide are now published in open access journals, a figure that is two to three times higher than was previously supposed, but also that the exponential rise in open access publishing shows no sign of slowing down.  In the UK, since about 35% of papers are reckoned to be made available through deposition in repositories — the green route — the total percentage of open access papers (52%) looks like it has crossed the half-way mark..."