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A New Model for Scholarly Communications
Open access offers free and unrestricted
access through the internet to all primary literature
published within scholalrly journals. This literature
is given to the world by scholars without expectation
of payment and in the hope that it is distributed and
read as widely as possible. Making it freely available
over the internet immediately distributes it to the
650 million people worldwide who have internet access.
Giving all interested readers access will accelerate
research, enrich education, share learning among rich
and poor nations, and, ultimately, enhance return on
investment in research (much of which come from the
world’s taxpayers). From being in a position where
institutions cannot supply all the information need
of researcher, researchers will be able to access all
of the relevant information they need to be effective
Open access also provides major benefits for authors.
Rather than their paper being seen by readers at the
few hundred institutes at institutions lucky enough
to have a subscription to the journal, the paper can
now be seen by all interested readers. This increases
the profile of the authors, their institutions, and
their countries. A good review is of the benefits of
open access is given by Peter
Suber.
To achieve open access to scholarly
journal literature, The
Budapest Open Access Inititative recommended two
complementary strategies.
I. Self-Archiving:
First, scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit
their refereed journal articles in open electronic
archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving.
When these archives conform to standards created by
the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines
and other tools can treat the separate archives as
one. Users then need not know which archives exist
or where they are located in order to find and make
use of their contents.
II. Open-access
Journals: Second, scholars need the means to launch
a new generation of journals committed to open access,
and to help existing journals that elect to make the
transition to open access. Because journal articles
should be disseminated as widely as possible, these
new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict
access to and use of the material they publish. Instead
they will use copyright and other tools to ensure
permanent open access to all the articles they publish.
Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals
will not charge subscription or access fees, and will
turn to other methods for covering their expenses.
There are many alternative sources of funds for this
purpose, including the foundations and governments
that fund research, the universities and laboratories
that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline
or institution, friends of the cause of open access,
profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts,
funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals
charging traditional subscription or access fees,
or even contributions from the researchers themselves.
There is no need to favor one of these solutions over
the others for all disciplines or nations, and no
need to stop looking for other, creative alternatives.
There is growing international
momentum in favour of institutional repositories and
open access journals. Increasing numbers of libraries
are taking on the role of hosts for institutional repositories,
becoming responsible for maintaining the intellectual
heritage of their institution. The success of growing
numbers of open access journals is proving the feasibility
of the new business models. As success is proved, more
authors, university administrators, librarians, and
funding bodies are becoming aware of the limitations
of the current system and possibilities of the new models.
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