Doing Better With Open Access Advocacy
When thinking about open access to content, is it appropriate to equate disabling downloads with lack of support for the visually impaired?
Nevermind the Data, Where are the Protocols?
Journals and funding agencies are focusing on data availability as a route to better experimental reproducibility. But the data is only part of the equation. A new set of NIH guidelines is a great start toward making methodologies better documented and more available.
Additive, Substitutive, Subtractive
It is often argued that open access will reduce the overall cost of scholarly communications, but this article proposes that OA will be additive to the size of the current market.
Is Open Access a Cause or an Effect?
Why can’t researchers agree on whether Open Access is the cause of more citations or merely associated with better performing papers? The answer is in the methods.
Open Access: Fundamentals to Fundamentalists
There is a certain fundamentalism that pervades discussions around open access policies and business models. On the one hand there are the advocates, and through the laws of conservation of energy, the equal and opposite reaction of anti-open access advocacy. There seems little room for rational debate about open access in the midst of such an antagonistic atmosphere.This post asks us to spend our time thinking through a range of open access models, experimenting and refining, rather than forcing ourselves down the road of policy mandates that potentially discourage innovation.
Rick Anderson at the Smithsonian: "Is a Rational Discussion of Open Access Possible?"
A video of Rick Anderson’s recent talk at the Smithsonian, on why it’s so hard to have conversations about open access that don’t devolve into shouting matches and accusations of bad faith
Open Access Mandates and Open Access "Mandates"
When does it make sense to call an Open Access policy a “mandate” — and when does it constitute unhelpful exaggeration?
Post Open Access Sting: An Interview With John Bohannon
One month since Science Magazine published its exposé on the lack of peer-review in, and deceptive business practices of, many open access journals, investigative reporter, John Bohannon, responds to critics.
Open Access "Sting" Reveals Deception, Missed Opportunities
What can be learned from John Bohannon’s investigative study of open access publishers?
Is Access to the Research Paper the Same Thing as Access to the Research "Results"?
Is access to the research paper really the same thing as access to the research results themselves? Are funding agencies creating a false equivalency by confusing the two? And does this confusion favor researchers in some fields over others?
CC-Bye Bye! Some Consequences of Unfettered Reproduction Rights Become Clearer
Authors should not be surprised when their open access articles show up in surprising places. Is it possible to embrace open access with some restrictions?
PubMed Central Reduces Publisher Traffic, Study Shows
PubMed Central reduces article downloads from 14 biomedical society websites when articles are made freely available after embargo.
Challenging the Access Crisis
A review of the literature shows that access conditions are getting better, not worse. So, why do we hear just the opposite?
Gaming the System: Do Promises of Citation Advantage Go Too Far?
Promises of more citations if authors pay are problematic in more ways than one.
Online Access and Citations — A Spurious Relationship, Economists Say
A study by two respected economists suggests it may be time to admit that we made a mistake attributing a citation advantage to open access articles.