The words “Open Access” have invaded academia in the last few years. But, what do they really mean? What has been done in their name? And more importantly, what has not been done yet? Last month Nicolás Robinson-García and Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras published “Acceso Abierto: Utopías, realidades y cuentas pendientes” (Open Access: Utopias, realities and pending accounts) at the IWETEL forum for libraries and documentation professionals.
On it they talked about the promises of Open Access (OA), the optimism with which it was accepted amongst the scientific community and, paradoxically, the lack of concrete steps that have been taken towards it. They highlighted the main characteristics of OA both in theory and specially in practice, and finish stating some topics that need work and reflection from the scientific community:
1. A transparent and open model
2. A sustainable and inclusive system
3. A balanced and efficient system
4. Evaluation of scientific activity
5. The end of boundaries between audiences
What do you think? You can read the full text here, we highly recommend it!