Stage 2: Open Access

Open access to all published research

Other Information:

Open Access to All Published Research -- A closed access publishing model charges subscription fees to readers of the research. An open access (OA) model funds publishing with publication fees and then makes the published articles freely available to all potential readers. Presently, the great majority of journals are closed access. But if someone told you that the publishing model could change to make scientific communication accessible to everyone and simultaneously reduce total publishing costs by $900 million on top of the savings of moving to digital distribution (Research Information Network, 2008), we presume you would think that making the change is a no-brainer. We agree. Open access is a financial benefit and a benefit for making information freely available. In Stage 2, we change from a closed access publishing model to an OA one (Harnad, 2003). Everything else in the standard practice remains the same.

Stakeholder(s):

• Research Readers


• Researchers: Researchers need to have access to the scientific literature in order to be expert at what is known and contribute new knowledge.


• Practitioners: Practitioners need access to apply the new knowledge.


• Research Funders: The funding public should have access to know how their money is being spent. Despite this, as of 2012, scientific communication is mostly a closed system. We briefly explain why, and then describe how this will change (in fact, the transformation is under way).

Objective(s):

1

Content