Why open access is important for readers?           

Under the prevailing subscription-based system, commercial publishers own a monopoly over the distribution of scientific research. They charge authors for the publication of their works, then charge the readers subscription, advertising, and online access fees; in addition they retain the copyright of the articles they publish.  Consequently, though the vast majority of the scientific research is publicly financed by taxpayers dollars, access to research is not freely and publicly available: it is restricted to customers who can afford to pay for subscription.

In June 2003, Martin Sabo, a Minnesota congressman, introduced a bill, entitled the Public Access to Science Act. The bill addresses several contemporary controversies in scientific publishing including copyright to published research material. According to Sabo’s bill, the works resulting from scientific research substantially funded by the government, would be excluded from copyright protection and become public domain. Since scientific research is largely funded by tax dollars, Sabo said, the results of research should be freely and immediately available to taxpayers who ultimately pay for conducting research.  

Why open access is important for researchers?

Scholarly communication is an essential part of the scientific research process. Not only scientists want to disseminate the results of their work to the public and their peers but they also need to ensure that their research findings are original.  While the highlights of scientific discoveries are often described in mass media, the details of the research studies are largely reported through journal articles, which make up the bulk of scholarly publishing.

In the past few years, the escalating cost of journals has forced many individuals and institutions to cancel their subscriptions, thus excluding large parts of the scientific community from scholarly interaction especially in the developing countries.  Until recently, many publishers and researchers believed that there was no better way to disseminate research findings; but in the late 1990s a few initiatives began exploring the alternatives to traditional subscription-based standards, launching the idea of a new publishing model -- Open Access.    

Reasons to publish with open access journals:

• Rapid peer review. 
  All papers are peer reviewed rapidly and efficiently due to an online system for submission, and peer reviewing.

• Immediate publication.  
  Your research is published immediately on the day of acceptance or very shortly thereafter.

• Free access.  
  No subscription charges or registration barriers for access to original full text research articles.

• Copyright ownership. 
  Authors retain copyright of their work, and are free to publish it anywhere on the web.
   

• High visibility.  
  Articles are available to the entire international scientific community.  
   

• No space constraints. 
  Online publishing provides unlimited space for extensive data, graphics, and video materials.

More on the advantages of publishing in open access journals

Create Change
An advocacy and education resource cosponsored with the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries. Includes downloadable brochures.