David Dickson, Communicating science in an electronic era, SciDev.Net, November 3, 2003. Developing countries are benefiting from the competition between open-access and toll-access journals. It leads to more open access, which helps directly, and it leads commercial publishers to participate in quasi-open-access initiatives like HINARI and AGORA, which also helps. "It would be naïve to believe that the future is going to belong to one model or the other. But neither would that necessarily be desirable, at least as far as the developing world is concerned. For, in the case of both models, one of the by-products of the competition between them is that resources are essentially being channelled from the scientific communities of the rich to the poor nations of the world. The latter already face a number of impediments, such as poor quality, high-cost connections, that limit their ability to benefit from the communications revolution that is sweeping the scientific community. All the more reason, therefore, to welcome any move that reduces their cost of access to publishing opportunities and journals, both of which lie at the heart of the capacity-building endeavours that developing countries so badly need." (Thanks to Leslie Chan.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/03/2003 07:16:00 PM.
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.
