Celebrating Open Access Week! But, which open access?
We take a moment to celebrate International Open Access (OA) Week October 23rd through 29th this year. We’ve come a long way in the past 15 years of honoring this publishing initiative, which makes research literature freely available on the Internet with few copyright or license restrictions. The common question now is not what is open access? Or even, why open access? Rather, the main question at hand is, which open access?
Many publications tout an open or public access option for your research output, but what solutions are really reducing barriers to publishing, reducing barriers to reading content, reducing barriers to reusing content, promoting equity, and promoting inclusion? Not all OA is the same. Even with all of the pressures faced when choosing where to publish, where to become a peer reviewer, which editorial team to join, which research to cite in your own work, and in all of the other ways we interact with published research and scholarship, we have an obligation to collaborate with publications whose main goals don’t center around maximizing profits for shareholders or gaining the largest sector of the market.
Support publishers and journals who embrace innovative and sustainable business models, such as Subscribe to Open, which converts journals to open when predetermined “fair pricing” revenue targets are met or Diamond Open Access, which charges neither authors nor readers and relies on institutional support As we shift our priorities, we will experience a shift as well in some of the other forces at play, notably which publications are high impact and which are viewed as most prestigious among colleagues.
This general sentiment is summed up in this year’s OA Week theme, “Community over Commercialization,” which you can read more about at https://www.openaccessweek.org/theme/en. Also, please Ask Us your questions about open access or let us know if you would like guidance incorporating these priorities into your publishing decision making.
Post contributed by Judy Rabinowitz