Richard Gallagher, Above and Beyond Open Access, TheScientist, March 29, 2004. Gallagher describes a recent debate on a matter of public concern --whether research on animals benefits humans-- and shows how open access to the underlying research articles prevented the discussion from becoming polarized into the black and white categories used in the press reports that would otherwise have been the sole source for most of the participants. Gallagher praises BMJ both for providing OA to the research article that triggered the discussion and for publishing Rapid Responses from all sides. Excerpt: "With BMJ, we have more than open access; we have open review. This method achieves a critiquing level that is not possible with just peer review, publication and subsequent media coverage. It is surely in all our interests for the BMJ model to be widely adopted by other journals that publish research that is of immediate public interest."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/27/2004 10:19:00 AM.
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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
