RE: The Value of OA

["Alma Swan" <a.p.swan@talk21.com>]

Peter Banks wrote:

> However, like most commentators, Anderson takes the value of OA 
> as a given: "There is no question that OA offers potentially 
> significant benefits to society. All other things being equal, 
> free public access to scientific information is clearly a good 
> thing." I think that this common assumption merits a far more 
> critical examination than it has received.

> But even if democratic communications probably won't save 
> mankind for its worst tendencies, can access to scientific 
> information accelerate research

Yes, it can. Open access is essential for the optimal progress of 
research for the following reasons:

1. It increases the visibility of research output and hence its 
usage

2. It speeds up the research cycle

3. It enables semantic computer technologies to do two things:

i) create one research space from which new information can be 
derived

ii) track, monitor, and measure citation and other patterns, thus 
enabling better understanding of scientific developments and 
better predictive methodologies (highly desirable for managers 
and funders of research)

4. It is a critical enabler of 
interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research

All these things are discussed at more length in an invited essay 
("Open access and the Progress of Science"), including supporting 
data, in the next issue (May/June) of American Scientist, out 
soon on a bookstall near you.

> In talking with researchers at major research institutions, I 
> have yet to meet a single one who felt that access to 
> information was a limiting factor in research.

John Houghton has already provided references to the empirical 
studies of others that appear to contradict this. In our own 
work, too, we have found that every time we ask researchers about 
this we get a completely different answer to the one you hear. 
And they are still saying it. Dozens of them, from all 
disciplines, sat around the table in focus group sessions I ran 
through last autumn and told of their difficulties in getting 
hold of articles they wanted (and these were just the articles 
they know about).

Many simply give up the chase - with untold repercussions for 
research progress, of course. These were people from some of the 
best-resourced research universities in the UK, places that could 
by no stretch of the imagination be described as 
'less-connected'. The report of that study will be published in 
the next week or so by the Research Information Network (and will 
be open access).

> The study of how information changes research, practice, and 
> understanding is too important to remain unexamined or to 
> remain the untested given of the open access movement.

Indeed. And those who examine it (empirically) and test it 
(empirically) draw the conclusion that open access will be a 
great driver in the advancement of scholarship.

Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK