Why Choose Open Access Platforms?

Scholarly and scientific research data works better when it’s open, shared, peer-reviewed, and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. Open Access Platforms allow that to happen.

This article goes into the five reasons to choose an Open Access (OA) platform, how Plan S is planning to transform the OA world, the present and the future of OA, and finally, discusses how Orvium contributes to a more open future.

5 Reasons to Choose an Open Access Platform

There are many reasons why you should choose an Open Access platform. They offer numerous benefits to readers, publishers, researchers, and institutions alike. Some of them include:

1. Collaboration is encouraged - we know from our Openness, a Must for the Research System article that openness is essential in research. Researchers can make significant scientific, economic, and environmental progress when they have access to all the information relevant to their research early on. This research is then available to collaborators, institutions, governmental agencies, the general public, etc. And probably one of the more important benefits of openness is collaboration. The sharing of research data encourages others to collaborate, reproduce, reuse and validate their findings.
2. Access and visibility evolve - articles or research materials can typically be more easily read, accessed, and disseminated if they’re published OA. Authors are able to reach a wider audience while readers can retrieve the articles or materials regardless of their geographical location or economic status. This makes sharing and recommending information with others much easier as well.
3. Impact and citations grow - in comparison to subscription-only journals, the short-term and long-term impact has been higher for OA published work. This is because OA work is usually placed in different indexing databases where the possibility of citation and recognition increases. Additionally, citations (and visibility) escalate a researcher’s reputation in the scientific community.
4. Sustainability flourishes - in traditional publishing, materials are restricted to articles only. Conversely, in OA publishing, research materials are not restricted. Any digital content, including images, text, raw and processed data, audio, video, and software, can all be a part of a digital archive. Available exclusively online, this lowers our overall carbon footprint.
5. Publishing costs are lower - journals and publishers benefit from lower publishing costs under OA. We already know that subscription-based journals are expensive for both the publisher and the reader or institution. Some OA journals may charge a submission fee to cover article processing charges (APCs), but these fees can get waived by institutions and funders worldwide (Plan-S, Horizon Europe) who support OA publishing charges.    

To read more about Open Access journals, read our Are OA Journals Reliable article for everything you’d want to know.

How Plan S Plans to Transform the Open Access World

Plan S, along with cOAlition S (an international consortium of research funders) and OA2020 (a global network of research performing organizations), have released a joint statement. It states that they work in synergy on both sides of the publishing chain to achieve quick, large-scale implementation of Open Access in scholarly journals and alternative publishing venues and infrastructures.

The Scientific Council, along with members from Plan S, said that: from 2021 onward, “all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional, and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.”

They believe that there is more than enough money in the subscription system worldwide to make a complete transition to Open Access while continuing to support new and improved ways of OA publishing. They further encourage research funding and research performing organizations worldwide to join them in withdrawing support from publishing paywalls and accelerate the transition to Open Access. You can see or join the list of institutions that have already signed the OA2020 Expression of Interest here.

The Present and Future of Open Access Platforms

Currently, there are still publishing paywalls in place and many institutions still make tenure, and promotion decisions based on more traditional journal publications. As mandates such as Plan S continue to come into effect, many researchers who receive public funding will be impacted. Also, as more funders move in this direction, researchers and academics will need to find reputable OA outlets for their work, as OA publications will count when tenure and promotion decisions are made in the near future.

Researchers need to be informed in regards to how OA mandates are growing, which funders are putting them into effect, and how to choose reputable OA outlets with good peer review. As far as OA is concerned, with the help from organizations such as Plan S and OA2020, as more and more institutions and organizations adopt OA, the future looks bright and open.

An Open Future Calls, How Will You Answer?

We’ve talked about some reasons to choose an Open Access platform, how Plan S plans to transform the OA world, and the present and future of OA platforms. Open research data has many benefits, and Orvium understands this and contributes to openness.

We are an OA platform that firmly believes in collaboration, visibility, sustainability and encourages researchers to do the same.
We have many OA publications on our platform. Discover what matters to you, and let’s aspire for an open and bright OA future.