The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship

Citation

Parry, F. (2006), "The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 600-601. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520610706505

Willinsky begins his case for open access to research and scholarship with the principle that “a commitment to the value and quality of research carries with it a responsibility to extend the circulation of this work as far as possible, and ideally to all who are interested in it and all who might profit by it”.

Anyone who works in the research or university sector will be only too aware of the effects of the constantly rising costs of publishing research – especially that of journal subscriptions. It often seems that the principle of wide circulation of scholarly research is not best served by conventional publishing means.

The case for open access as laid out in this book is beguiling. The old publishing models are seriously out of date in the digital age. Open access is gaining ground, and research is often produced privately, bypassing the normal publishing route – in “free” Internet journals, institutional repositories, e‐print collections and the like. And yet traditional publishing still manages to retain its grip. There are considerable kudos in publishing in a well‐known journal with a high impact factor. Publishers offer strong editorial and technical support to help researchers get their (quality‐controlled) work published and seen by the “right” people. There are also benefits in researchers having their work made accessible by being indexed in professionally produced subject indexes.

Nonetheless, there are some encouraging developments for the open access movement, some of which spring from the publishers themselves. Delayed open access lets subscribers have a first look at research before open access kicks in. Some publishers allow free access to people in developing countries. BioMed Central is an example of a publisher which charges an institution a fee for the right to publish in its open access journals.

It is Willinsky's contention that for every perceived benefit of having one's work published in a conventional journal a better and more equitable solution can be found by publishing using the open access method. He believes, for instance, that more open access articles are cited than restricted published articles, that collaborative or cooperative projects are a cheaper means of producing published research and are capable of offering quality editorial and technical support. He also provides a “ten flavors of open access” summary in an appendix.

Willinsky is a powerful advocate for open access but does not side‐step any of the tough issues involved in the process. The chapter dealing with the seemingly intractable problem of copyright, for instance, is very well reasoned, as is the one on the economics of publishing. At times I would have appreciated a robust argument from the other side of the fence, but I guess that will have to come in another book. Just how the publishing industry responds is anyone's guess. One thing is clear – further change is inevitable.

John Willinsky was part of the team which developed the software for the Open Journal Systems and is Principal Investigator for the Public Knowledge Project, which provides technical assistance for publishing open access scholarly research. Appropriately enough, this book is available for free download from the Public Knowledge Project website. The book contains several other useful “case study” appendices and a very full bibliography which charts the development of open access and the thinking behind it. If you would like to cast a wishful glance at the possibilities of open access research, you cannot do better than start here.