If you follow science communications in general out there on the Web, you’ll have noticed last month’s Open Access (OA) Week, when the academic and research publishing world celebrates making knowledge available for all. Maybe you’ve wondered what OA is all about, and what makes it different from traditional research publishing. You may also have caught a whiff of the predatory publishing controversy that seems to dog the OA world.
First, open access means just that: no barriers to information. Under OA, research papers are freely available regardless of subscription, institutional alignment or membership. Anyone with access to the Internet can read the research without having to pay the hefty user fees to get behind the paywalls associated with traditional subscription-based academic publishing.
But publishing is expensive, so who carries the cost if there are no subscribers?
Traditional academic publishing relies on journal subscriptions from individuals and institutions who want to read papers hidden beyond the paywall, and also charges processing fees to authors once a paper is accepted. With OA publishing, the costs are recouped mostly from the authors,