The access/impact problem and the green and gold roads to open access

S Harnad, T Brody, Fà Valliè res, L Carr… - Serials …, 2004 - Taylor & Francis
S Harnad, T Brody, Fà Valliè res, L Carr, S Hitchcock, Y Gingras, C Oppenheim…
Serials review, 2004Taylor & Francis
The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all
of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to
make all articles Open Access (OA; ie, accessible online, free for all). OA articles have
significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the
“golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your
article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). Only 5% of journals are …
Abstract
The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to make all articles Open Access (OA; i.e., accessible online, free for all). OA articles have significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the “golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). Only 5% of journals are gold, but over 90% are already green (i.e., they have given their authors the green light to self-archive); yet only about 10–20% of articles have been self-archived. To reach 100% OA, self-archiving needs to be mandated by researchers' employers and funders, as the United Kingdom and the United States have recently recommended, and universities need to implement that mandate.
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