Open access refers to any publication that is freely available to readers at no cost and has no or limited restrictions on reuse provided by the open license. Free, immediate online access to scholarly research results and the right to use and reuse those results are necessary for further research. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge, which was published in October 2003, defines and gives a complete understanding of Open Access to knowledge. The research output of any country depends upon the availability of resources and reading materials for free or at a lower cost. Open access helps reach these goals. The Open Access (OA) movement is prominent today because of the high cost of accessing scientific papers. Normally, in the "subscription model" for accessing the research papers in a journal, we need to pay for the research behind the paywall. These paywall fees have increased over time. The higher cost of research papers does not allow users to access the papers because they are somehow not able to bear this cost. Substantial charges levied by journals on various subjects place researchers in a precarious situation. In this way, access to research results is limited to some users, which is not the optimal use of research going on in any country. Due to various underlying issues arising from the present situation with regards to scientific publishing and access to scientific literature, various models of Open Access have been adopted across the globe. This article explores different open-access subscription models being employed across countries around the world and the future goals of these models for making more and more content openly and freely available to everyone.
Open access to the scholarly content is important to take the research to the next level and give it momentum that is lost in the long process of publishing in paywalled journals, and also because underprivileged researchers are not able to access them. Countries across the world are finding various ways to make research accessible instantly after publication and also free of charge. India is not an exception to the open access trend that is pervasive worldwide. India firmly backed the open access movement with the One Nation, One Subscription journal access strategy. India’s Ministry of Education said, "The government is going to adopt a "One Nation, One Subscription" (ONOS) policy for scientific research papers and academic journals from April 2023 to ensure access for researchers countrywide, and the government will negotiate with journal publishers for "all people in India" to have access to journal articles under a single, centrally negotiated payment to be made by the government."1
Another recent initiative towards open access is having a national archive and interlinking it with the national archives of G20 countries. India is discussing laying the foundation for a national archive to share open access research among G20 countries. A few more meetings to be held to discuss the agenda and plan for the national archive of India, which is interoperable among the archives of G20 countries. The Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood (March 2023), chairing the G20 Chief Scientific Advisors' Roundtable (CSAR), a government-to-government level initiative of the G20 Presidency, for careful consideration on a critical topic: free and universal access to scientific journals that are behind paywall.
Points for discussion are:
Common methods of scholarly communication are publishing research papers/articles, book reviews, primarily in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and books. Besides papers/ articles, book reviews, the other textual formats of communicating information are: Preprints, working papers, reports, encyclopedias, dictionaries, sound, and video recordings, data visualization formats, blogs, and discussion forums, etc.
ACRL (2003) defines it as “Scholarly communication is the system through which research findings and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the research community, and preserved for future use.”1
Open Scholarly communications
The word “Open” in open scholarly communication denotes the open access of scholarly communication. The knowledge which is open to all for free without any restrictions. It is available to the wider scholarly community to use for the sustainable development of society. Generally Open access involves making scholarly information available free of charge, immediately and in an on-line format.
On the page of Roger Williams University, "Open Access in Scholarly Communications" is defined as "opening up the research process for quicker dissemination of research findings and rapid discovery by making scholarly information available online, free and unrestricted.”2
According to Bohyun Kim (2021) “Open scholarship aims at producing transparent and accessible knowledge by sharing research outputs in various types for access and reuse by others from that sharing.”3
It is the process of publishing and sharing the research findings of researchers to be available to the wider research community and beyond that. The aim is to contribute to the sustainable development of society by keeping close relationships between teaching and research and through the pursuit, dissemination, and application of knowledge. The benefits of Open Scholarly Communications are enjoyed by both authors and readers.
Principles of Scholarly Communication Services:
These principles aim to ensure that the Scholarly Communication Services should be open, transparent and support the core values of scholarship. As we know that future research needs the fundamental base of previous research, that needs to be communicated to all research communities beyond any geographical, financial or personal interests. Scholarly communication should always be in the very interest of Scholarship.
In September 2017, COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) pledged to collaborate with others on the same issue and published a joint statement and accordingly,
COAR and SPARC have developed seven Good Practice Principles for Scholarly Communication Services.1
These principles are based on the the "Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructure"2 developed by Bilder G, Lin J, Neylon C (2015)
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| https://www.coar-repositories.org/news-updates/good-practice-principles-for-scholarly-communication-services-2/ |
Initiatives to support Open Scholarly Communications:
Open Access Week: It is an annual scholarly communication event that occurs across the world in the month of October. It includes talks, seminars, symposia, or the announcement focusing on Open access and related topics. "http://www.openaccessweek.org/"
Open Access Initiative: The Budapest Open Access Initiative gave momentum to the Open Scholarly communication. It came in to existence after a meeting held in Budapest by Open Society Institute (now Open Society Foundations [OSF]) on December 1-2, 2001. The aim was to accelerate progress in the international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available on the internet.
Publishing Open Acess Journals: To make scholarly content openly available to the public, many institutions host peer reviewed journals, as well as teaching materials and book series through a software "Open Journal Systems" (OJS). It is a collaborative, open source software project maintained by the Public Knowledge Project. Publishing in Gold and Green Open access journals and PlanS (an initiative for Open Access Publishing) share one aim of making scholarly publication available freely to all.
Open educational resources (OER): Textbooks, course readings, and a wide range of other learning content that are created with the intention of being freely available to users anywhere. They are copyrightable works licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R’s of Openness: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): DOAJ is a community-driven database of over 15 000 peer-reviewed open access journals from all the countries and in all languages covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
CrossRef: It is a community-driven, not-for-profit membership organization that aims to make scholarly communication better. Crossref is registered as Publishers International Linking Association, Inc. (PILA) in New York, USA.
MOU between DOAJ and Crossref:
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and CrossReference run by Publishers International Linking Association, Inc. (PILA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on June 22, 2021.
Role of Libraries in Open Scholarly Communication:
Academic and research libraries are also increasingly recognizing the importance of Open Scholarly Communication and supporting open access of scholarly communication by launching institutional repositories, creating open access publishing funds, formulating institute open access policies. Libraries are providing support to students, faculty, and administration in Scholarly Publishing (manuscript preparation, formatting, journal submission). They now play an important role in the dissemination of research outputs and have emerged as a Liaison Librarians, open access ambassadors and open access policy makers, metadata providers, etc.
Open availability of scholarly material can have a significant impact on education, health and innovation and can be of benefit to the society in their overall development.
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