Open access movement – from advocacy to policy to practice?
26 July 2012, by Mari Elken
While the debate on open access is not new, the topic gained momentum earlier this year when Tim Gowers, a renowned Cambridge mathematician, wrote a blog entry about Elsevier and the practices of pricing and peer reviewing. Quickly picked up by a number of publications, including The Economist, Gowers' writing prompted a heated campaign and boycott against the publisher by academics world wide. More than 12,000 academics signed a petition to boycot all journals by Elsevier on the The Cost of Knowledge website and many prominent newspapers gave the topic a lot of coverage. However, as long as academia is dependent on reputation and publication indexes in high ranked journals, demand will continue.
