Open Access

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Open Access

What is Open Access?

Open access is not the same as on-line access. The latter is simply a way of delivering content which says nothing about who is allowed access, what is charged or any access restrictions that will be attached. On-line access does not imply open access. Most print journals allow on-line access as one means of delivery. The doyen of academic weeklies, Nature, uses the dual format of print and on-line which allows writers to ‘publish’ before the work appears in print. Whichever way you want to read Nature, you will still have to pay.

Print publication journals have served the academic world well for many centuries. But several problems have emerged in recent decades. Increased research funding has produced more research requiring publication. There is a limit to the size or quantity of journals that can be printed to carry this increasing load of academic papers. With research moving so fast, the extra editorial time required to print can be critical. An annual index or the content for subscribers fall short of the capabilities of a digital search engine.

Open access (OA) is seen as the answer by many people. It implies free distribution, and re-distribution for everyone except for commercial re-publication. There are several open access models. Pay to access gives way to delayed access. Delaying access encourages people to pay a subscription to get early access. These people are also attractive to advertisers. The other model allows immediate, full access.

In fast-moving research areas of science, medical and technical (SMT), immediate access is important to those in the field. So it is feasible to persuade users to pay for the privilege of a first look at new research. However in subjects such as history or social studies, there is not the same commercial urgency, so the delayed model would be unlikely to be commercially viable.

Full OA does not enjoy the various commercial advantages, so those using it must rely on grants and gifts, plus the efforts of volunteers or in-kind contributions.

The academic world is divided on the merits of open access. OA makes the products of learning available to everybody and puts pressure on those who restrict access to justify the charges they make for their journals. There are downsides for academics. Authors not only looked forward to the prestige attached to publication but enjoyed a modest, but very welcome, fee.

With all types of open access, the author not only receives no fee but also has to make a contribution to publication. The restricted funding for OA publication means that the author will get little support with editing or graphics. So OA means more work for academics.

The morality of who pays for the research raises interesting issues. The journal publishers do not fund the research or pay the salary of their authors. They are just the messengers. Advocates of OA therefore ask what right they have to control access. The publishers would respond by emphasising the role they play in maintaining high standards by funding peer review.

OA can therefore claim to be a social benefit offering wide readership to all mankind. However, the old model provides stability, so the debate continues as universities struggle to afford to pay for access to the increasing number of publications.

There are other models for publication. To avoid the delay and the cost that goes with printing, some journals confine themselves to on-line versions only. These journals are not restricted by the number of pages they publish and attempt to recover their costs not simply in subscriptions but also by adopting a ‘pay-to-view’ model. In theory, the author will receive some income from their article from those who download it.

One force working in favour of OA is library funding in the developed world. It is hard to keep pace with the cost of all the learned journals and a comprehensive set of subscriptions would dent the education budget of many smaller nations. Without OA, knowledge is owned by the rich nations of the world. A study by the British Council some years ago showed that the developing world contributed a disproportionate proportion of SMT papers compared to their GNP. It would be doubly unjust if the poorer nations were excluded from the developing knowledge base.

Open Access is not a business model. It is an expression of the rights of everybody to have access to these resources. The government, public bodies, trust funds and charities, which pay for most of the research to be undertaken, are increasingly demanding that the benefit of the work is made available to the wider community. This alone will ensure that OA has a future. Anecdotally one hears that all public bodies are building OA publication into the grant conditions.

Whether OA prospers depends upon institutional and governmental policy as well as its acceptance by the academic community. Users will ultimately decide which types of access survive. If the accessible work is cited by other academics it becomes incorporated into the corpus. Citation is the lifeblood of researcher bodies. If users decide that the work available in open access is not up to standard this model will struggle to grow.