OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING — “SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR”

Abstract

Scientific knowledge needs to be widely disseminated across the globe, for it to be critically analyzed or to be built upon for future studies. The conventional publication model has been less accessible due to prohibitive subscription costs and hence the need arose for the open access model where the readers would have free access. The Open Science movement is not only about open-access journals but also includes open source, open data and methodology, open peer review, open-access indexing, and archiving. The prototype open access model is the gold model where researchers (themselves or supported by grants or funding agencies) pay certain article processing charges and the readers have free access to the content without any restrictions. Additionally, there is a need for free-to-use open-access platforms or repositories like PubMed Central to archive the open-access content. Institutional repository is another way for collecting, archiving, and distributing the scholarly contents of an academic institution. Preprint servers allow archiving manuscripts before they are submitted to or undergo review for publication, and they offer an important platform for freely sharing knowledge. While open-access model looks attractive, it has its challenges. Currently, the change to open-access model has meant the transfer of the financial burden, earlier borne by the readers, to the authors in the form of APCs. Irrespective of the model, there is a need to reconsider the high subscription costs and the article processing charges which are often prohibitive for many. Science must be accessible to the researchers and the public at a reasonable cost without delay.