The supporters of an "open access" model contend that publication is the final step of the research process and, thus, should be supported by research grants provided by the Federal government or other funding agencies/organizations. Unfortunately, grants provided by the National Institutes of Health, the primary supporter of biomedical research, are often awarded in $25,000 modules that allow for some flexibility in how to use the monies, but not enough to allow the research investigator to make realistic choices. Should funds be used to support the supplies and personnel to do the research or the cost of publication? [PS: OK, then just skip the OA journal fees and deposit the article in an OA archive.]...
In the US, the supporters of PLoS are attempting to influence funding agencies to adopt policies and to earmark funds in order to advance open access....Can we realistically expect the NIH and the federal government to cover the full cost of publication at a time of budgetary constraint? [PS: If this refers to the new NIH OA plan, then it misses the target. The proposal is not to pay the costs of journal publication, but to pay the costs of OA archiving in PubMed Central.]...
The term "open access" is actually something of a misnomer when it comes to describing online journal publishing. While readers enjoy free access to these publications, authors are required to pay $1,500 (in the case of PLoS Biology) to have their work published. [PS: Surprise! No serious OA advocate has ever said that OA literature is free to produce, only that there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating an access barrier.]...
We believe that a free society allows for the co-existence of many publishing models, including an author pays model, and therefore believe that it would be foolish and dangerous to do away with one model for another that remains largely unproven. [PS: We agree on what a free society allows. To argue that OA models are superior to non-OA models is not even close to arguing for a prohibition of non-OA models.]
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/22/2004 04:49:00 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.
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.
