Open Access Week 2023 will be held from Monday, October 23 to Sunday, October 29.
In Open Access Week, Open Access-related events are organized around the world.
This year's theme is "Community over Commercialization."
International Open Access Week official website
What is Open Access (OA)?
Traditionally, it was not possible to access academic papers without expensive journal subscriptions, but now there is a new way to provide access to the scholarly works of educational and research activities, such as journal articles, through the Internet free of charge to people around the world. It is OA.
The promotion of OA is spreading all over the world in order to share scholarly works without difficulty and to promote further development of academic research.
"Paywall"
There are two majour routes to achieve OA: free publication by publishers (Gold OA) and publication by authors themselves on their own websites or in institutional repositories (Green OA). Institutional repositories are services provided by universities and other institutions to support OA by making articles and other materials of their affiliated researchers available on the web free of charge.
Gold OA imposes a high publication cost (APC) on authors, making it difficult for researchers without sufficient funds to publish their results. For universities and other institutions that also subscribe to journals for a fee, the duplication of costs with the subscription fee is also a problem.
Green OA is based on paid subscriptions to academic journals, and in many cases, the publishers prohibit free publication of articles for a certain period of time.
In both OAs, there is an over-commercialization of academia, and there is a "paywall" to access and publish scholarly works.
A documentary film “Paywall：The Business of Scholarship”
A documentary film by Prof. Jason Schmit from Clarkson University and others, consisting of interviews with researchers; academic publishers, OA promoters, etc. After the release of the film in 2018, changes have taken place around academic publishing, but "Paywall " still exist.
The film is available on
the official website and
Youtube. (CC BY 4.0)
Youtube can display subtitles in multi language with automatic translation. Select Settings→Subtitles→English (auto-generated) → Subtitles→Auto-translation and select language.
Please note that the meaning of expressions may be shifted by automatic translation.
OA Now and in the Future
In response to the over-commercialization of academia, policies to realize OA are being formulated at various levels, including the government, research funding agencies, and universities. OA has tended to converge on the Gold OA versus Green OA debate, but the interplay of OA policies, funding agencies, and scholarly publishers' contracts has caused a more complex situation. This situation is common worldwide, and the need for international collaboration has been pointed out to break the deadlock.
In this context, a form of OA that does not impose a cost burden on either authors or readers is also being explored, and is called Diamond OA. In particular, community-driven OA methods led by researchers are attracting attention.
The theme of this year's Open Access Week, "Community over Commercialization" is a topic that looks to the future of academia.
The Potential of Open Source Tools
Universities and research institutions "buy" software for their research. Purchased software is convenient to use, but it cannot be used once you leave your institution, so when you leave your institution for employment or study abroad, the research environment you have established may be disrupted.
On the other hand, by using open source software, you can create your own research environment that you can continue to use no matter where you go.
Hokkaido University library is planning a training session on the open source information management tool Zotero and platform for version control GitHub in this November. The lecturer is Associate Professor Michael Schiltz of the Graduate School of Media and Communication.
Details are announced later on the library's website.
OA and Research Support at Hokkaido University Library
Hokkaido University Library provides various kinds of research support, including support for Green OA in the institutional repository
HUSCAP.
Research Support Information, Hokkaido University Library
＜Further help and information＞
Hokkaido University Library, Research Support Division
js[at]lib.hokudai.ac.jp
2023/10/26 13:45
update: 2023/10/26 13:47
Dr. Michael Schiltz
