Abstract: Conclusion: In H G Wells’s ‘Country of the Blind’ the “one-eyed man is king’, while Canadian author Margaret Atwood has said, “an eye for an eye only leads to more blindness”! Many in the academic community remain “blind” to OA issues and are often constrained in taking action by historical practices, and more importantly by reward systems, both perceived and real. They thus occupy the academic institutional “country of the blind”. Informed institutional leadership, combined with vibrant advocacy programmes and enhanced reward systems, is required for relevant eyes to be opened to the nature and benefits of OA. Institutions now have the chance to accelerate the OA scholarly communication process. Such “action does not require total agreement with the OA movement's beliefs and proposals, but it requires an active engagement with them.”(Bailey, 2005) This “engagement” with individual researchers in institutions will be the key to scholarly communication change.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/01/2006 10:43:00 AM.
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.
