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What is the implication of open access?
The objective of open access
is to ensure free access to research information:
articles, conference proceedings,
doctoral dissertations and theses,
other published and unpublished materials.
The development of open access
gives an opportunity to more widely disseminate
the results of scientific research,
guarantees their worldwide visibility
and provides better access to global research resources
for members of an academic community.
What do you know about open access?
Open access to research information was developed
as an alternative to journals issued by commercial publishers.
Commercial publishers who have monopolistic positions
charge very high fees for access to the results of scientific research.
Even rich countries are encountering the problem
when institutions are not able to assure access
to all published research journals,
therefore open access has come up as an alternative option.
Open access promotes access to information,
i.e. enables researchers to get research information free of charge.
I am very positive about open access
because it enables to quickly find out what is happening,
what research has been undertaken
and what results have been accomplished worldwide.
Respectively it gives an opportunity to spread a message
about your own research and the obtained results.
What is your opinion about open access?
From the customer’s point of view
it can be evaluated only positively.
I have a very high opinion about open access
and I think that it should continuously grow,
the number of publications and other uploaded materials should go up.
When we speak about open access
we usually have in mind certain organized institutional initiatives:
publications or institutional repositories.
My evaluation is very favorable.
I have been working in the field of distance learning
for eighteen years, and when we talk about the information’s accessibility
and openness, open access becomes an outstanding issue.
This is progress. Everything what is progress is related to openness.
Open access is the enhancement of status,
visibility of a university and a researcher,
citation and accessibility.
I do not see any negative aspects.
Those who support these initiatives and implement open access projects
might have more assignments,
assume bigger responsibility and need more knowledge.
The issues of intelectual property rights are problematic.
Among the complicating aspects of open access
it could be mentioned that there is no such thing
as publishing free of charge.
Someone has to cover the costs of
organizing the publishing process, other costs.
These costs can be covered either by the institution,
or not so often – by the scientists themselves.
What is the researchers’ evaluation of open access?
The researchers, although not all of them,
are already aware about open access,
thus the efforts, which have been made by us since 2005,
during a six-year period have born fruit.
I use the open access journals in my field of research.
This information is really useful and can be most easily accessed.
The researchers’ publications,
results of their research become visible, are read,
and it is evident that they are more frequently used
and cited in the works of other scientists.
I suppose that open access resources enable
to more quickly find learning materials by certain authors.
These materials will be more widely used,
consequently they will become beneficial.
Accordingly, the researcher will be able
to more quickly find the materials needed by him.
Hence open access is the environment
which provides any researcher with an opportunity
to be more widely known and to more quickly find information.
One of the main criteria is that these are the top level publications.
Namely, if a researcher is published in such publications,
and especially in those which are issued abroad and
which are read by a very wide auditorium worldwide,
this enables him to strive for better citation ratings
and to get into journals having bigger impact factors.
The research results that have been presented
in open access are much more frequently cited,
better visible and thus they become a better representation
of a particular researcher or a group of researchers to the general public.
The film was made in implementing the project
of the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium
and international consortium
EIFL Promoting Open Access in Lithuania.
Script – Lithuanian Research Library Consortium
Camera – Vilnius University Library, KTU Centre for E-learning Technologies
Editing – Vilnius University Library