Hans E. Roosendaal, Knut Barghorn, Eberhard R. Hilf, White Paper on Scientific Publishing, August 20, 2007. The authors are all university faculty but published this paper as members of the SciNE consulting firm. Excerpt:
Starting point for this discussion is that any business model in scientific publishing should be measured by the value it creates for the research process....
To improve universal access, the process of scientific publishing has been and is continuously changing to adjust to new possibilities provided by present day technologies. Nowadays technology not only allows a new dimension to universality, but also new types of services: information can be accessible around the globe and in a federated way and new innovative and powerful services focusing on further scalability of the information can be designed and implemented....
The differences between the two models [open access and toll access] lie in the different roles they have in the research process. The costs of making the scientific results available can be considered as internal research acquisition costs. This is the basis of the open access model. The subscription model, on the contrary, sees the reader as consumer and costs for the acquisition of information are treated as external from the research process. Other differences between the models are in the different weaknesses that they have with respect to the two main parameters of wide availability and power of selection. The subscription model provides little incentive for providing wide availability for the author; the open access model provides little incentive for investing in effective selection tools for the reader....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/18/2007 10:33:00 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.
