Comment. This is OA-friendly and well-done. I hate to pick nits but there are a few small ways in which Mark could improve the document. A date would help, since the OA scene is always changing. The primer focuses on OA journals and neglects OA archives, but it admits this upfront. (For a two-sided introduction, see my OA Overview.) The only factual mistake is the claim that most OA journals use the "author pays" model. The Kaufman-Wills report of October 2005 showed that only 47% of OA journals charged author-side fees --fewer than half and even a smaller percentage than the subscription-based journals charging author-side fees. In any case, this model should not be called "author pays" since, as Mark acknowledges, authors rarely pay out of pocket.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/14/2006 11:47:00 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.
