Open Access Publishing: Liberating Information, Welfare, and The Economy

Therefore, the article as such is demonetized. Under these conditions then within our interest as an open access publisher to reach the biggest possible market and the academic communities. OA has the opportunity to become a cost-reducing mechanism for scholarly publishing. Open Journals System (OJS), an open source software available for anyone to use and download without charge, is another example of this.

But what about the readers and consumers for these scholarly journals? Publicly available data can be used to stimulate innovations, such as new analytical methods and more research questions as their incentives. Access to research results should only be restricted in the case of national security, privacy, or those involving IP rights of the authors (Arzberger et al., 2004). A major principle underlying this is the ownership of research results: publicly funded research and data are public goods and because they have been produced in the public interest they should be considered and maintained as such. That notion has been one of the worldwide OA movement's unifying points.

For low and middle-income countries, OA publishing breaks traditional financial barriers and allows unrestricted, equal access to scholarly information to people all over the globe. Due to the high prices of journal subscriptions, developing countries struggle with access just as in developed countries, but to a greater extent and consequently with greater negative repercussions.

For academic institutions like libraries, universities, governments, and research institutes, the major benefit of lowering the cost of knowledge is the extra budget that can be reallocated for other purposes. For researchers themselves, OA can increase their audience and impact by delivering wider and easier access for readers. For publishers, promoting OA is an answer to the desires and the needs of their research communities. At its core, the scholarly economy is a reputation economy in which prestige ranks before all else. Even those academics who publicly oppose impact factors and the like are subjected to a tenure and incentive system based on prestige as assessed by such bibliometric devices. A win-win situation for everyone involved when information is more accessible.

REFERENCES:

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Laakso M, Welling P, Bukvova H, Nyman L, Bjrk BC, et al. (2011) The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLOS ONE 6(6): e20961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020961

Enago Academy. (2018, May 24). The Economics of Open Access Publishing. Enago Academy. Retrieved November 9, 2022, from https://www.enago.com/academy/economics-of-open-access-publishing/ 

Arzberger P, Schroeder P, Beaulieu A, et al.: Promoting access to public research data for scientific, economic, and social development. Data Sci J. 2004;3:135--152. 10.2481/dsj.3.135 

 Odlyzko AM: Open Access, library and publisher competition, and the evolution of general commerce. CoRR. abs/1302.1105, 2013