This short article discusses an emerging trend in the information-seeking behaviour of scientists, i.e. mere reliance on online information. Based on a study of physicists and astronomers, this article shows that more scientists now assume that if articles are of enough quality and significance, they must be available online and vice versa. Though still in a low minority, a number of scientists believe that what is not available online is not worth the effort to obtain it.
... I wonder how hard it is to extend that idea to “if it ain’t OA, how important can it be?” In the continuing wrangling about impact factors and the effect of OA on article-citation rates, one of the hypotheses advanced is that people make their good stuff OA, which accounts for the extra citations. Academics are imitative folk; if we can make this meme stick, it could help us.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/06/2009 10:44:00 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.
