Open Access Day

It’s Open Access Day. Mission: to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access. Their approach: “synchro-blogging” – an attempt to get as many folks as possible to blog on the given topic at the same time.

So, to answer their questions:

1. Why does Open Access matter to you?

OA is important for many reasons: go and read this by Jonathan Eisen instead of my rambling. One that stands out for me: it signals a fundamental change in the way that information is conveyed from writers to readers and an admission that the traditional publishing process is obsolete in the internet age. We live in a world where people expect instant, relevant information in the top 20 hits from a Google search and that expectation is transferring to science too. I don’t care how prestigious you think your journal is, or whether you see yourself as some kind of “guardian of knowledge”. I want information, I want it now and if you can’t deliver, I’m going somewhere else (*).

2. How did you first become aware of it?

I honestly don’t remember, but it was some years ago. I suspect it was around the time that journals such as Nucleic Acids Research and Bioinformatics introduced an OA option for authors. I also remember quite vividly the appearance of BMC on the scene and thinking “now, this is different and exciting”.

3. Why should scientific and medical research be an open-access resource for the world?

Lots of reasons. (i) The world pays for the research and shouldn’t have to pay again to view the results. (ii) Scientists should be accountable – exactly what are we doing with your tax dollars? (iii) When information is free, many eyes can look at it and many eyes = more ideas than fewer eyes.

4. What do you do to support Open Access, and what can others do?

Hey, I’m just a postdoc – I don’t get to make influential decisions! That said, five of my last six publications are OA. Where possible, I try to submit to OA journals and I review papers for OA journals. Once in a while, I blog about OA and other “open science” issues.
What can others do? The same and more. Read blogs that cover OA – starting with Jonathan and Bora. Understand its philosophy. Promote it in public (blogs, wikis, FriendFeed). Make it the norm, not a novelty.

(*) OK, I work in a large, relatively-funded university which subscribes to most journals – so I won’t deny myself a non-OA article on principle. Others are less fortunate.