Professor John Houghton is the Director of the Information Technologies and the Information Economy Program, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is one of the driving forces behind the EASI-OA research program, which aims to provide a coordinating focus for new research on the economic and social impacts of open access....He spoke to Kate Worlock about his preliminary findings, details of which were presented at the JISC Moving Towards Open Access conference in September 2006.
What were the driving issues behind your research?
Two things: some frustration with the debate on open access, and wanting to engage senior policy makers....
[T]he open access debate...seems to be all about costs. Economists are less interested in the level of cost than in which systems are most cost-effective – the cheapest way of doing things may not necessarily be the most cost-effective. This led to the idea of measuring the impact of, or benefits derived from, the content, as well as the costs of production and publication.
I was a co-author of a report for the OECD on scientific publishing a couple of years ago, with the intention of engaging high-level policy makers who weren’t involved in the debate among publishers, librarians and researchers and raising the issue of open access in their minds. I continue to try to frame the research in such a way as to engage senior policy makers.
In recent work we have looked at the potential impacts of open access on returns to investment in R&D. The Australian report follows on from that by looking at the costs and benefits of scholarly communication – although this is not be easy to do....
What are the key findings to date?
There are three key findings.
The costs of scholarly communication are substantial.
The potential impacts of enhanced access to content are also likely to be substantial.
Policy makers should note that access to content may be an important determinant of returns to R&D spending....
How do you believe that the move towards open access will shape up?
The movement towards open access is likely to be painful, messy and slow, involving many competing business models. Take-up will vary by discipline....
I do not see a long-term future for copyright-based scholarly publishing. The future for publishers probably lies in adding value to open access content through peer review, compilations and toolsets. Publishers will need to face a whole new range of competitors, including technology players such as IBM and software companies, who are focusing on the life sciences as a lead market.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/28/2006 11:56:00 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.
