Reviewing a few Internet publications on open access, I found that almost every open access (OA) advocate’s efforts are in one of two directions: analyzing, understanding, and explaining that OA is much more useful than closed access for everybody (except maybe for giant publishers) or promoting the foundation of OA serials / repositories and publishing in them. While the domination of OA serials and repositories form the end goal of the OA movement, I believe the current direction of efforts is not the best one to achieve that end goal in the fastest way possible. Re-engineering the open access movement to address what is currently missing can be very useful in expediting the domination of open access....I propose that only a certain part of the OA advocates’ efforts be directed towards supporting the extensive use of OA publications. I don’t mean a total change; I am saying that roughly two thirds of the efforts should stay in the current directions, but the rest should be in the direction of promoting the extensive use of OA publications. Amplifying the use and citations of the OA publications will result in higher awareness and impact for the OA literature. As the impact and awareness keep amplifying, the readers (users) and authors’ demand for OA literature (serials and repositories) will intensify. This increased demand will result in higher OA supply (in the form of OA journals and repositories), which is the end goal of the OA movement.
Comment. Use of OA literature will certainly help the cause. Three quick comments: (1) Scholars need more education and encouragement to provide OA than to use what is already provided. The spectacular convenience and utility of OA literature nearly sells itself. When scholars can find relevant and worthy OA literature, either they are already using it or can easily be persuaded to do so. (2) If we can increase usage even further, then I agree that we should. But the trick is to do so without suggesting that scholars should change their standards about what is relevant and worthy. Supporting OA is not about refocusing our research on projects where there is already good OA literature, but providing good OA literature on every research topic (I'm not suggesting that Masoud disagrees). (3) There is already good evidence that OA increases citation impact. This phenomenon does not need intentional enhancement as much as better publicity and wider understanding.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/04/2005 10:07:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
