Open Access

Finally! Something about "open access" written for regular people! (Much of what is written is for higher ed teaching and research faculty, academic librarians, etc.) Open access (OA) is ". . .  the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research."

From the Center for Digital Education -- 

Open Access to Scholarly Work Gains Steam in California Universities

By Tanya Roscorla

ON AUGUST 8, 2013

University of California (UC) faculty seek to take back their rights with a new policy that allows them to make their scholarly work available to the public at no charge. But some say the open access policy doesn't go far enough.

With this policy, the UC Academic Senate is trying to fix a mounting problem in scholarly publishing and steer the direction that this field goes.

"The kind of policy we passed is a way of asserting that faculty authors want to define open access on their terms, which is to say on terms that benefit the university, its research mission and public access-that's what we value at the university," said Christopher Kelty, associate professor of information studies at UCLA and chair of the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. "Publishers want to define it on different terms, mainly their self preservation to some extent, but also in terms of it being a profitable business model in many cases."

The problem with the current publishing process

Currently, faculty send articles about their research, reviews of other research, and abstract principles to scholarly journals for publishing. Getting published in a prestigious scholarly journal is a big deal in academia because it's one of the ways that universities decide who will be promoted and receive tenure.

But in this traditional publishing process, authors usually sign away exclusive first publishing rights to the journal. The journal makes its money by charging subscription fees to university libraries and others, and doesn't allow the research to spread outside of its publication for a year or two.

Until now, large research university libraries have paid for subscriptions, no matter what the cost. But deep budget cuts and skyrocketing subscription costs have prompted libraries to reconsider how they obtain access to scholarly work.

Article continues at link. 

The Association of Research Libraries-led Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is a good, credible source for additional information about OA. 

The Center for Digital Education is a division of e.Republic, ". . .  the nation’s leading publishing, research, event and new media company focused on the state and local government and education markets." The Center for Digital Education, itself, is ". . .  is a national research and advisory institute specializing in K-12 and higher education technology trends, policy and funding.")