Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, May 14, 2004

Wellcome Trust contra publishers

Two brief pieces in the Times Higher Education Supplement, no.1639, 8 (May 7, 2004), provide contrasting views of open access. (Restricted to subscribers.) The Wellcome Trust's Mark Walport, in "Everyone's a Winner," reaffirms his organization's support of OA, touts their study which demonstrates its cost-effectiveness, and argues that fears of breakdown in quality and peer review "are unfounded." Arie Jongejan of Elsevier, on the other hand, is quoted in "Publishers Resist Revolution" as saying that OA journals "should come with health warnings about integrity, quality and access." Further concerns aired include prevalence of funding bodies in OA publishing at the expense of less well-supported researchers, and society publishers' belief that the author fees wouldn't even come close to sustaining the quality associated with their publications. (Source: Tom Roper's Weblog)