Going for Gold
Positioning your business to win As Open Access enters the race
Friday, July 11, 2014Report
WHAT IS OPEN ACCESS (OA)?
The key principle of Open Access (OA) is to make academic research outcomes freely accessible to all readers. It has emerged over the past 20 years, driven by academics at research-based higher education institutions, who feel that research should be made freely available to users / readers.
In the OA model, academics ‘pay-to-publish’ their articles rather than ‘pay-to-read’ the articles of others. Under this model, authors pay publishers an article processing charge (APC) to submit their research to journal editors for consideration for publication. This model replaces the ‘pay-to-read’ model, where publishers charge research institutions – typically libraries – annual subscriptions for access to content.
Proponents of the OA movement argue that APC-based funding enables greater access to research. Sceptics argue however that pay-to-publish models remove a key element of quality control, and incentivise journals to publish more articles rather than better quality ones. Where all stakeholders agree, however, is that OA is becoming a key area within journal publishing with the potential for wide-ranging impact.
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