Email
Open access to academic research – where to start? You would have been hard pressed to avoid a conversation, news story or blog post about it over the last year. From the publishing hoax run by Science magazine, to UK MPs slamming the latest government report on policy for open access research, it seems open access has never been a hotter topic.
As with anything new, this publishing model is not without its critics. So what's the future of open access? Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, says open access is being held back by myths and misunderstandings repeated by people who should know better.
John Bohannon, a science journalist at Harvard University, who recently revealed that 157 open access journals had accepted a fake scientific paper, believes that we're seeing an emerging "wild west" in academic publishing due to a growing number of low-quality open access publishers. Others have raised the issue of quality control in open access journals and believe what we're really witnessing is a meltdown in the peer review system. And then there's the ever present tug of war between gold and green open access models.
The main aim of open access publishing is to make the results of academic research freely available to anyone, but of course someone has to pay, and cost is another problematic area. Over the years, the price of journals has exploded and publishers are responding by packaging journals in massive bundles that no longer allow universities to access easily the ones they most need.
In this online discussion, we want to discuss the impact open access is having across the board in the higher education and publishing sectors, from researchers to universities, from libraries to the publishing giants.
Here's what we're looking to discuss:
• Quality control and peer review
• Cost and corruption
• Access and knowledge
• "Publish or perish" attitude
• Where now and what next?
Join our panel of experts Friday 25 October from 12-2pm BST to debate the future of open access publishing, posting any questions you have in the comments below. You can also follow the debate live on Twitter using the hashtag #HElivechat
Panel:
Robin Osborne is professor of ancient history, fellow and senior tutor at King's College, Cambridge
Matt Cockerill is managing director of BioMed Central Springer Science+ Business Media. @bmcmatt
Ellen Collins is research officer at the Research Information Network. @ellenscollins
Rupert Gatti is co-founder of Open Book Publishers. @rupertgatti
Curt Rice is vice-president for research and development at the University of Tromsø, Norway. @curtrice
Danny Kingsley is the executive officer of the Australian Open Access Support Group. @openaccess_oz
Geraldine Clement-Stoneham is knowledge and information manager at the Medical Research Council. @GeraldineCS
Robert Kiley is head of digital services at the Wellcome Library and oversees the development of the Europe PMC open access repository. @robertkiley
William Gunn is head of academic outreach at Mendeley. @mrgunn
Chris Wickham is vice-president at the British Academy and editor of Debating Open Access
Dinah Birch is pro vice-chancellor for research at the University of Liverpool, chair of REF sub-Panel 29 and adviser to some HEFCE funded, BA-led research into the impact of OA on HSS journals
Stella Butler is a librarian at the University of Leeds and chair of Research Libraries UK. @stellabutler1
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Looking for your next university role? Browse Guardian jobs for hundreds of the latest academic, administrative and research posts
;