Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, March 08, 2008

OA is socially responsible research

Stian Haklev, A “Fair Trade” logo for academic research?, Random Stuff that Matters, March 7, 2008.
... I have come up with a few [ethical] points that I would like to commit myself to, and which I think are important and decent in terms of doing [anthropological] research in developing countries.
  • All research output should be published through open-access channels, whether open-access journals, or journals that allow self-archiving. ...
The title of this blog post comes from the flippant idea I had this morning in conversation with my flat mates that perhaps some kind of a “Fair Research” designation should be developed, with a logo that could be applied to research materials, certifying that they had followed a certain number of practices. I realize that this would probably be very inflexible, as researchers are continually re-evaluating what practices are appropriate in any given situation. Yet, I would like to see a much stronger movement to force people to consider these ideas.