Open Access Explained!

What is open access? Nick Shockey and Jonathan Eisen take us through the world of open access publishing and explain just what it's all about. Make sure to watch it in HD and Fullscreen!

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CREDITS
Animation by Jorge Cham
Narration by Nick Shockey and Jonathan Eisen
Transcription by Noel Dilworth
Produced in partnership with the Right to Research Coalition, the Scholarly Publishing and Resources Coalition and the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Joel Adamson]

Why bother to say "I'm not a communist." If things make sense, they make sense: the internet has fundamentally changed how research (and other things) are distributed. This is like saying "I just ate a sandwich, but I'm not a communist." 

[Tina Penman]

This is why peer-reviewed blogs are going to become popular.

[Tim Ryan]

Really well done! There's a newer video from Wiley (search "RCUK Open Access") that explains the RCUK Open Acess mandates. Especially good for researchers.

[Amber Mathy]

Nice video! Lol

[KomoPineconeseed]

Yep, yep. The good percentage of article publishers are public institutions. The research was probably partially funded by public tax dollars, so logically, the public should have access. The complaint is that there seems to be few free journals that the everyday person can have access to. Is that the fault of the publisher for enforcing a subscription or the fault of the researcher of publishing to a private journal? I agree that they should clarify these topics.

[Joao Rijo]

(cont) anyway this totally makes sense of course, but the article publishers are public institutions? I thought they were private ones. Is the video advocating for a public institution to publish the freely accessible articles? Or is it just hoping some private company will be convinced to change their business model in a way that articles are freely accessible? (like getting income from the writers of the articles?) I think another video could be made that is clearer on these topics.

[Joao Rijo]

Ah, so this video is just advocating for the articles, resulting from state sponsored endeavors, that are normally published in pay-to-view journals, be published in freely accessible online journals. correct?

If so it doesn't seem very clear to me in the video. It's probably clear for people that deal with these kind of things in their daily lives, but for people that are not familiar with all this research articles business it's somewhat unclear, scattered, doesn't have a clear statement.

[KomoPineconeseed]

I have no idea what you're talking about. The journals don't prevent people from reading it, they just prevent people from reading it for free. If you're scared of dangerous discoveries going to be leaked, putting it in a journal will not secure it since all you've got to do is pay the $40 to get it. And yes, you want anyone who has internet access to get the information. That's the point of publishing -- to spread info.

[winterkrash]

I wonder how or where the copyediting and translation of those studies that are not in English or are written by non-native English speakers will come into play in the Open Access model. Also, how would third-party or blind reviews will be addressed. These concerns coming from a grad student who also happens to be a copy editor by profession.

[xnick0]

Why are you concerned about being a communist or not? It's not an evil thing, and it even doesn't matters.