Open Access

Open Access refers to academic texts and journals being accessible and free to everyone via the Internet. Usually, academic works such as research findings and articles summarising and showing information are in the form of physical books that are paid for, like any other book.

With the idea of 'free' reading, there are obviously economic issues regarding payment to the author and publishing companies, as well as royalties and other publishing issues. The concept of the ''common good'' comes into action here, in that publishing and allowing the public to view these established academic works is positive and beneficial for society, in that there are no limitations or prejudice in regards to the individual and any contributing factors which may have limited them to accessing these works previously. One limitation is the pricing of the books. As any University student could vouch for, text books are not cheap. The Internet will always be used for research, simply because it's so quick and easy, not to mention literally free. However, the Internet cannot always be 100% reliable.

''Many journals now cost more than $20,000 for a year’s subscription.'' - Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard University, USA. 

Having well researched, completely reliable sources that can be accessed so quickly and freely is so beneficial to society that the distribution of knowledge has gone wider than ever before in that you do not have to be a specific type of person in order to access new and more complex information. 

There will obviously always be issues with the distribution of free knowledge. Some of the most debated issues are listed below.

-'Traditional' academic publishing - Peer review/ professional publishing. 

-Issues of cost, access and distribution

-Issues of knowledge circulation and inequality

-Effect on wider society

-Opportunities and Challenges - standards, 'green' archive. 

In regards to the publishing side, Professor Dame Jane Finch, a sociologist at the University of Manchester states here that open access could cost the publishing industry up to £60m per year, however with the falling subscription prices, it will welcome economic growth and be beneficial for everyone. Universities are currently paying up to £200m for access to certain scientific journals that have been criticised for 'locking' away their works. The Internet is obviously relatively free and so ridiculously popular that it is part of everyday life to use the internet, with 2,405,518,376 Internet users from June 2012. With the amount of people who use the Internet, there will be a large percentage who use it for academic purposes, be it for educational, work, or just curiosity purposes. Wider society will benefit from having access to academia, it will entitle literally anyone to find out about whatever they want. It is possible that it will also strengthen the education system, in that students will have better access to research that they can investigate themselves. There is always the backlash of giving students the 'easy' option, however if the 'easy' option is more beneficial for everyone, why not take it? 

Another highly understandable issue about Open Access that hasn't been mentioned much is that of copyright and plagiarism. There has always been the issue with copying from books, however the internet is so much broader than books could ever be, in that there are millions and millions of pages, meaning the sources of information are scattered and if not referenced properly, could be almost impossible to find. You cannot delete a book, however you can a webpage. There will always be plagiarism, and Open Access could increase that, however with the more complex marking systems used by schools and universities, such as Turnitin, Plagiarism is a lot simpler to control, as the programme can search the whole web for similarities in the students work and anything available on the internet. With textbooks and journals online, this makes it easier to see if a student has copied from a textbook instead of the actual internet. This makes teachers and examiners jobs easier and simpler as the process isn't long winded, and they are able to spend more time on each paper, giving more precise and true marks. 

The pro's and con's of Open Access will always be weighed up against each other. The pro's are much more beneficial long term. They benefit more of society than banning the movement would. The argument that it would follow with an economic downfall for the publishing industry is worrying however alternative plans can be put into action, and as Professor Finch suggested, the industry will boost again and it will be long term beneficial.