...My point [in an earlier blog post] was not to say that any particular [scholarly] site is never open to any particular group of people who would like to access it--rather that, faced with the knowledge that one might not be able to get through or will have to wait for long periods of time without knowing the payoff, some scholars just won't try. That goes for both scholars outside of China searching Chinese language materials AND scholars inside China searching for non-Chinese language materials. Chinese universities may simply not have the resources to provide open internet access for scholarly work, but it seems absolutely critical if Chinese academics are to effectively prepare themselves for the future.
Several people also pointed out that MIT OpenCourseWare is available here on a Chinese server with bits and pieces translated into Chinese. (Those more broadly interested in open source scientific scholarly communication and the politics of academic publishing will want not want to miss the plethora of papers in Session 157, "Promoting Open Access" in Asia and Oceania (scroll down the program and you'll find the links), recently presented at the 2006 World Library and Information Congress in Seoul....
Finally, Li Kaifu reminded me of another common situation at Chinese universities -- some schools charge individuals extra to access foreign websites. I do not know whether this practice inhibits scholarly searching for those faculty and students....
If anyone knows of a good study looking at the cost of accessing foreign websites for university scholars, and how it shapes their scholarly search practices, please do let us know!
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/28/2006 11:32:00 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.
