Abstract
Almost 50% of scholarly articles are now open access in some form. This greatly benefits scholars at most institutions and is especially helpful to independent scholars and those without access to libraries. It also furthers the long-standing idea of knowledge as a public good. The changing dynamics of open access (OA) threaten this positive development by solidifying the pay-to-publish OA model which further marginalizes peripheral scholars and incentivizes the development of sub-standard and predatory journals. Causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are used to illustrate these interactions.
Highlights
Almost 50% of scholarly articles are open access in some form
This article examines how the evolving open access movement is changing the dynamics of scholarly publishing in a way that both helps, and hinders, peripheral scholars
Examples of respected early open access (OA) journals3 are Ecology and Society, online since 19974, and the seven journals published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS)5, online since 2003, among others
Summary
Much scholarly work is built on knowledge discovered or created by previous scholars. The details of that previous work are communicated via scholarly publications. The form of these has changed over the years, the most common form now is via journal articles and books. Access to this accumulated knowledge is an issue of vital importance to scholars
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