Open Other End: does crowdfunding hold promise? : Open Access Now

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-01-30

Summary:

"When we hear the term 'open access' we most often think of the publishing and dissemination of scholarly work. We’ve been noticing some movement on the other end of the “information lifecycle spectrum” though. Does crowdfunding – appealing directly to the public for money via the Internet – hold promise on the research end? Open access is not free, and there are are a variety of funding models. There are still questions about funding too. For example, when Sage Open reduces its article processing charge (APC) to $99.00, and when the APC at PLOS is $0 – $2900, what is the true cost of an open access article? But before the article is published, before the research has even occurred, we’re wondering: Is crowdsourcing innovative? Is it workable and sustainable? Or, is it – as Gawker reports –  online panhandling or a 'reservoir for useless projects (New Republic)'? If you’re quick, you still might have time to get over to today’s web seminar, “Crowdfunding Science: Appealing to the Online Community for Research Money,” from The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)... take a look at the successful use of the crowdfunding site Kickstarter by grad student Naomi Slipp. Naomi  raised money to support an exhibition on the history of medical illustration in the U.S., 'Teaching the Body.'  Or wander on over to another successful Kickstarter project to translate some of the works of Vaclav Havel into English, 'The Havel Collection,' by Edward Einhorn.  Finally, the platform Curēus describes itself as: 'Leveraging the power of an online, crowd-sourced community platform,  Curēus promotes medical research by offering tools that better serve and highlight the people who create it, resulting in better research, faster publication and easier access for everyone.'  Crowdfunding has certainly worked in other sectors, such as music andtechnology. But we want to know – will it work for research and scholarly output? Or should the questions be, 'How often will it work?' and 'What are the pitfalls?'"

Link:

http://oanow.org/2013/01/openotherend/

From feeds:

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

Tags:

oa.new oa.gold oa.business_models oa.comment oa.plos oa.events oa.crowd oa.costs oa.aaas oa.funding oa.sustainability oa.prices oa.fees oa.sage oa.fundraising oa.kickstarter oa.cureus oa.teaching_the_body oa.havel_collection oa.publishers oa.journals oa.economics_of

Date tagged:

01/30/2013, 16:08

Date published:

01/30/2013, 11:08