Open access – Preaches and practices
“Publish or perish” is a well-known catch-phrase in academic circles. In accordance with the exponential information we live in (i.e. Big Data or Moore’s Law), scientific publication has undergone a drastic change in the last few decades. To be successful, researchers are forced to publish as many of their results in prestigious peer-reviewed journals as they can. Bibliometrics and scientometrics are being used to determine the value of scientific work.
The big demand was met with a big supply, and academic publishing worldwide has grown into a multi-billion dollar business. However, since the practice of profit-oriented companies encountered the scholarly world of academia where researchers perform editorial and reviewing tasks pro bono, a lot of controversies have arisen, along with many new ideas to solve them.
One of these revolutionary ideas is the unrestricted and free online access to research articles, widely known as “Open Access” (OA). In the area of research assessment, (e.g. the evaluation of grants and job applications), other paradigms are also emerging in place of the currently common use of scientometrics. One reply by the science community to the growing use bibliometrics was the publication of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) in 2013. This declaration has been signed by more than fifty scientific organisations, and twelve thousand individuals.
The complete report can be downloaded at : http://www.eps.org/?page=policy_science_res
