The importance of open access critiques

“Among the speakers of that recently held public debate on "Open science and the future of publishing" I think Prof. Lord Winston's take on this topic was perhaps the most substantive, in that I think it really does force some solutions for the future. The main reason for this is the tremendous amount of experience that Prof. Lord WInston carries with him. The man is a surgeon, a scientist, and a politician and I think his insights are just priceless... ‘I don't believe it [open access] really contributes to public engagement and I'd argue that it is about time we stopped talking about public understanding of science but much more about communicating science, and that means a two-way process. Communication is not done through Journals.’ - PLRW ‘When it comes down to access I think clarity is more important than open access, I also think relevance is more important than open access too, I would argue that probably interaction is more important than open access.’ -- PLRW Having acknowledged that, I wonder whether he is underestimating the power of online communities that organize themselves around Facebook, blogs, and user-content driven sites like Reddit, Arstechnica and Slashdot to name a few. Anyway, I am quite sure that such communities will play a big role in the extraction of content and meaning, and then, recycle it, even from hardest of topics so that an intelligent lay person could understand. Here is an example on this related to the Higgs-Boson news. In summary, I'd say that we need more criticisms of this type. Because they are most important in helping us navigate towards more optimal solutions. It seems we are heading towards stratifying the science landscape online. A layer of ‘open access data warehouses’, and a separate layer of Journal publishers (open-access and closed-access types). The online ‘user’ driven self-moderating open-communities will then most likely become an integral part of this landscape.”