This article derives from a presentation made at the meeting "Zichtbaar onderzoek. Kan Open Archives daarbij helpen?" / Visible research. Can OAI help? This was a "good practice” conference organised by AWI (Flemish Ministry for Economy, Enterprise, Science, Innovation and Foreign Trade) and VOWB (Flemish Organisation of Scientific Research Libraries) May 2006....
I propose four main reasons as to why Open Access is beneficial for the way scholarly research is carried out and how its findings are used, and is thus incontrovertibly beneficial for human society as a result. I mention the latter because the stakeholders are, after all, not just the immediate players in the game: we all have stakes in there, too – researchers, research institutions, nations and global society as a whole. We all have an interest in the efficient and effective progress of scholarly endeavour. The reasons I offer, then, for why Open Access is the way to go are these:
Open Access means there is greater visibility and accessibility, and thus impact from scholarly endeavour
Open access means there is more rapid and more efficient progress of scholarly research
Open Access means there can be better assessment, better monitoring and better management of science
Open Access means that novel information can be created using new computational technologies
These are not just personal hunches. There is evidence for each....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/24/2006 02:38:00 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.
