Universities could be adding millions of pounds to the UK economy, according to findings announced this week by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) at a Universities UK event. The report, Modelling scholarly communication options: costs and benefits for universities, is authored by Alma Swan. It reportedly shows that a single large university could contribute around £3 million each year to the research community as a whole simply by sharing knowledge through a more open route.
Open access (OA) is the free online access to the outputs of publicly funded research. Currently, universities often share their knowledge, and thereby support innovation and practice by businesses, public bodies and third sector organisations, through subscription-based journals. These are seen to be too expensive for many outside universities to afford in the numbers needed.
OA is already being explored in many UK universities and higher education colleges and required by all major UK funders. Nevertheless, the report suggests more could and should be done in the next five years to make OA the preferred route for publishing research and thus increasing the competitiveness and creativity of the nation.
Where institutions have gone down the OA route, the uptake and interest has been significant. According to Ian Simpson, Deputy Principal, Stirling University, since the introduction of an OA policy, the university has seen 43 percent of research outputs published and accessed freely online through a repository. Downloads of information have increased from 5,000 per month in 2007 to 45,000 per month in 2009. This is a very persuasive case for senior higher education managers and knowledge transfer managers to explore the greater use of OA, according to its proponents.
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