Open Access Journals

Open Access: Future of Academic Research

Research journals publish the most recent and cutting-edge research in their respected fields of study; the information they provide is valuable to researchers, professors, and students. However, only people with access to institutions that pay for journals’ yearly subscriptions expand their knowledge of recent research studies. Thus, the general public and independent researchers are left either ignorant of new research or to pay an expensive fee for a single article. There are other ways to acquire the same research at little to no cost for the consumer via open-access journals or websites. Open-access is the future of academic research because it provides valuable academic knowledge to the general public and erases the for-profit “middle-man” publishers.

It’s been almost thirty years since the internet became public; today, we expect all information online to be free and instantly accessible (Leetaru, 2017). However, in the world of academia, universities and institutions have to pay at least $100,000/year to access research journal articles (Leetaru, 2017). For example, Cleveland State pays up to $1 million/year in journal subscriptions (Goodsett). This data shows that you have to be a member of the academic and/or research community in order to have access to novel published research; yet, such access is often limited as it’s based on which journal subscriptions an institution purchases. Dr. Michael Eisen, a UC Berkeley professor and advocate for open access, makes several good points: “‘Realistically, only scientists at really big, well-funded universities in the developed world have full access to published research… The current [for-profit] system slows science by… limiting the number of people who can access information’” (Murphy, 2016). As Dr. Eisen mentions, only a small percentage of the general population can acquire information in subscription journals. Open-access mainly benefits the readers because anyone can access the published material for free (Crowley, 2017). Right now, higher education institutions hold the majority of subscriptions; yet, the public can learn a lot from the academic community. I believe it’s very important for the general public to be aware and educated about recent research findings; everyone would benefit from open-access academic materials. Not only does it fulfill one’s thirst for academic curiosity and knowledge, but some novel research findings could impact one’s life.

The general public wants research articles to be made free on the internet but it’s often the journal publishers who hold copyright and encourage the for-profit exchange of articles. The research article publishing process is a lengthy one that ultimately only benefits the publishers. Researchers spend months running the experiment and plus a few more months writing a paper to describe the methodology and analyze data. Then, researchers submit their paper to journals for free, initiating the volunteer-based peer review process. When accepted, the author transfers copyright to the publisher and makes zero profit because it’s just an honor to have a published research paper. Finally, the journal restricts access for this article and only shares it when readers pay for the article or for a subscription (Goodsett). The journal pays almost nothing to publish research and makes great profits through restricted article access.

According to Murphy, “journal publishers collectively earned $10 billion [in 2015]” with the largest publishing companies “typically hav[ing] profit margins over 30 percent” each (2016). This is an absurd system that benefits the publishers financially. “Leaders of the scientific community - Nobel scientists, heads of institutions, the presidents of universities” benefit from the prestige associated with being published so they aren’t willing to support the switch to open-access (Murphy, 2016). Compared to the excruciating for-profit process of publishing research, open-access articles are freely available to anyone on the Internet and allow authors to retain copyright of their research, thus having control over republishing rights (Abbasi, 2012). We’re in the 21st century and most of our information comes from free online sources. The academic community no longer needs physical copies of journals; publishers are no longer spending money on printing, editing, and peer-review costs - they are making large profits just for creating a shared space for research. With websites now providing open-access articles, why are readers still paying the “middle-man” publishers who contribute nothing?

Despite all the pros, there are some issues that the academic community needs to sort out before becoming completely dependent on open-access. Open-access websites need to adhere to copyright and only publish articles after receiving the authors’ permission. SciHub, “the world’s largest ‘pirate’ archive of academic literature,” contains about 69% of all published research studies (Leetaru, 2017). This database is “pirated” and “unlawful” because most authors don’t grant SciHub permission to use their work; so, millions of stolen articles are illegally downloaded onto this website and uses the misleading term of open-access. These articles cannot truly be open-access without the researchers agreeing to republication. Another issue is: who should pay for the standard fee of $1,500-3,000 required to distribute the research online? Open-access websites don’t need publishers and journals, so many propose the author-pays model which “asks authors to cover production and publication fees, whilst conforming to the requirements of open-access publishing in terms of availability and re-use of articles” (Abbasi, 2012). While open-access benefits the public, many authors don’t believe that it’s their responsibility to subsidize the cost of their published article (Crowley, 2017). Additionally, being published an a prestige academic journal greatly improves one's reputation in the academic community. It is seen as a great career achievement that could lead to research grants, media interest/coverage, and future job opportunities. Being published in an open-access journal, however, is a less impressive feat in the eyes of some academics. There is a great discrepancy in how one's reputation is affected by the type of journal (subscription or open-access) one's article is published in. Copyright, the matter of who pays for distribution costs, and the prestige associated with the type of journal are three main problems we need to sort out before open-access becomes the future of academia.

Popularizing open-access journals would revolutionize the research article process by eliminating publishers, who are the only ones financially benefiting from for-profit journal articles. Open-access journals would also allow anyone to use and learn from newly published research. The open-access debate has many contributing factors, with research journals only being one; another major component of the debate discusses open educational resources for universities, which would eliminate the astronomical prices of textbooks and thus encourage more students to attend college (Harris, Schneegurt, 2016). Open-access journals and open-source textbooks are rarely discussed but both are crucial for the future of academia, which lies within open-access materials available for students, university faculty, and the general public.