Building Greater Equity and Inclusivity With Open Access

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The concept driving the open access movement is to reduce the paywall in the traditional publishing industry, thus allowing the greater public to access information freely. The idea of equity is built into the open access publishing model. OA publishing paves the way to a more equitable and inclusive community across a broad range of fields and the global citizenry.

OA Publishing Increases Access for the Public and Researchers

In its purest form, open access journals and publishers offer their information completely free of charge. Anyone with access to the internet can get their hands on and utilize the information and data presented. Additionally, these companies provide researchers an avenue for getting their work in front of a broad audience. However, these outlets do have costs associated with their operations. In reality, there is still a payment structure in place, but who pays and how varies.

With the article processing charge model found in many scholarly publishing outlets, authors pay the publisher a fee to publish their work. Unfortunately, this limits opportunity to those who can afford to pay. Some research publishing outlets attempt to mitigate the inequity by offering waivers for researchers with limited resources. In other instances, major scientific research funders cover the cost of publication for authors who make their work widely and freely available to readers and fellow researchers. While the system is not perfect, these initiatives move equity and inclusivity in journal publishing increasingly forward.

OA Publishing Levels the Scientific Playing Field

Open access publishing trends indicate that the OA environment continues to strengthen, with more authors publishing in open access journals and more traditional publishers moving to partial or complete open-access business models. Researchers favor the OA model and want more of their work to appear in open access journals.

A large percentage of scientists in the Middle East and Africa publish their research in OA journals, opening avenues for researchers from underrepresented geographic regions. Furthermore, open access offers other benefits for scientists, including:

• Increased collaborative opportunities
• More citations
• Increased representation in their fields
• Improvements in research replicability

Though there are still issues around equity for researchers, specifically involving funding and internet reliability, open access creates a more level playing field for scientists across fields and around the globe.

OA Publishing Is Easy With Amnet

OA trends indicate that the future of open access is strong and will continue to pave the way to a more equitable research community and a more engaged public. When you partner with us, we utilize our digital and domain expertise and business acumen to make it easier for you to create and distribute your content. Contact us today to find out how we can help.

Sources:
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00883-6
2. https://doaj.org/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7769382/