Open Access...is good?

Okay, I am a little bit obsessed with my Google Reader, where I receive updates from all of my favorite blogs.  I subscribe to many blogs on the topics of science, libraries, travel, fashion, and food.  On my science and library blogs, I often receive interesting updates about what's going on with information sharing, scholarly publishing, and other related items.  Many times, I will turn around and re-blog about the topics I find particularly interesting and that I think you might, too. One of my blogs, Science Intelligence and InfoPros recently posted results from 2nd Conference on Scholarly Publishing (Prague, August 2010).  These results show that most scientists believe that:

Open access is good for science!

If you've visited the Recommended Resources page, you'll see an entire list of open access databases, including PubMed Central, BioMed Central, Directory of Open Access Journals, and PLoS (Public Library of Science).  But what, exactly, is open access, and why is it good for science?

Peter Suber, a scholar of scholarly communications, provides a great overview of open access here:  http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm.  He writes that open access resources are those that are online, free of charge, and free of most copyright restrictions.  This means, of course, that the information is more accessible, since it does not come with the hefty price tag that many journals and databases have.  Because of this, information in open access journals can be more influential, and have a greater impact on literature and practice, if it is not limited to the group of people able to pay for it.

At the 2nd Conference on Scholarly Publishing, the reported findings included that:

• 2/3 of all OA journals are Science, Technology, or Medicine-related
• 3/4 of all OA articles are Science, Technology, or Medicine-related
• Overall, the OA model improves scholarly communication and accelerates science

Of course, one of the perceived weaknesses of open access appears right in its name:  open access is open. While many open access journals do utilize the peer review process, the idea of a freely available journal makes many researchers a bit nervous.  In my post on the peer review process, I mention a few of the ideas that are involved in the journal-vetting process:  politics, prestige, and authority.  Since open access has been around for awhile, many researchers are becoming more comfortable with the idea of it; however, the prestige factor is one that still discourages some researchers from fully backing (and therefore, publishing in) open access journals.

People have been conducting research about open access journals, their usage, and their impact for about the past decade.  A detailed bibliography of studies conducted about open access journals can be found here.  Getting back to the original point of this post, many of these studies support what was found at the 2nd Conference on Scholarly Publishing:  that open access journals are good for science.  Interested in more information about OA?  Visit the SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) website to get information about authors rights, guidelines, policies, and more!