Need help writing a literature review

Trident University International

Jimmy Butler

Module 3 Case-Open Access

LIB597-Online Research Course for Graduate Students and Research

Dr. Ellena Stone Meredith

September 1, 2019

Open Access

Researchers argue that open access has significantly become beneficial in the current world of research. Beall, (2010) say that open access is an extensive international academic movement that enhances open and free online access to a variety of educational information. Some of this information includes data and various publications. Hence, open access allows individuals to download, read, print, search or use the information for education purpose. Contrary once should adhere to legal agreements related to open access materials.

 However, open access has played a vital role, especially in academic institutions, where students can access a variety of academic resources free of charge. The research found that students and scholars spend much of their time on the Internet looking for academic resources, which are crucial in their course work. Thus, open access is essential across all academic fields. This paper aims at examining the pros and cons of open access.

Advantages of open access

Open access allows free access to learning materials. According to studies, the primary aim of having open access to facilitate access to a variety of academic articles and other critical academic materials (Heron, Hanson & Ricketts, 2013). Interestingly, those people are unable to join university can learn on their own online through open access to scholarly materials. Research shows that there has been an emergence of a variety of open access online course. Hence individuals can enroll in such courses, which allows them to advance their knowledge and skills. Moreover, individuals incur no or less cost while learning through open online courses.

It allows extensive access to academic materials and learning. Open access allows an individual to access educational materials in any region across the world. Hence the individual only needs a computer and a stable Internet connection to browse numerous academic articles throughout the web. Moreover, students and scholars situated in countries with low income where education is extensive can access materials to enhance their learning. Also, various researchers can connect with the international research community through open access. Hence, researchers and scholars can improve their knowledge and skills through open access materials. Additionally, broad access to academic materials allows the researcher to obtain better results in their research projects.

Open access enhances scalability at a low cost. Scholars argue that open access work is very efficient in terms of distribution. Researchers found that open access can be distributed more extensively while incurring little or no cost. Contrary, the traditional publication techniques are very costly in terms of printing and distribution of materials. Hence, open access requires only an Internet connection to upload and publish scholarly work or academic articles on the Internet. Open access materials are circulated faster. In most cases, online academic articles and other resources are distributed more quickly on the Internet and made available to anybody who has access to the Internet. Moreover, open access allows frequent update of the latest research and other online materials. Hence, researchers can get reliable and useful information more frequent. Additionally, the most recent updated contents and online resources can enhance learning in the academic institution since leaners are updated on the current trends in their learning majors.

Open access is less expensive for students. According to research, most students access academic materials online. Hence, open access has eased the burden of physical publication to most students. Findings show that students opt for open access to online scholarly articles since they can get the required content more efficiently at a short time. Thus, students choose to buy personal computers, which are efficient at accessing open-access information. Although personal computers are a bit expensive, on the other hand, they are beneficial in the long run.

Studies show that open access materials provide businesses with extensive recent materials. Such materials serve as a good source of business ideas, which are beneficial for business advancement. Also, such ideas allow businesses to boost the economy. Additionally, businesses can get insight on current trends and new methods of generating more revenues.

Disadvantages of open access

Lack of sustainability, studies show that open access information is mainly free to users who can access it online. Contrary, producing search information is not free. The authors who publish such information incur some publishing fee (Bjork at el., 2010). Moreover, writing and preparing open-access information requires more time, which is not paid. Hence, issues of time and cost mainly discourage the authors from publishing their content through open access method. Therefore, they opt for paid platforms where the students or individuals are supposed to buy the content or incur some subscription fee to access such the content.

Some open-access materials and information are of poor quality. Some research shows that open access journals are sometime of poor quality compared to the pay wall journal. Findings show that some authors create low-quality arguments in their materials. Thus, they opt to publish the poor quality contents to sites, which have got less reputation. Most of these sites provide open access methodology of accessing content and online materials. Hence, such contents and materials are not reliable sources of information to researchers and learners. Moreover, such materials contribute to poor quality research due to lack of enough information.

Rating of the researcher’s work depends on the impact factor. However, the newly published journal takes too long before they can obtain an impact factor. Hence the open-access published materials take too long to gain ratings. Consequently, authors are discouraged from publishing and preparing more materials.

Conclusion

The discussion has revealed that open access is of critical importance in various fields such as academic and businesses. It opens up extensive opportunities for open access leaning to various individuals. Moreover, open access provides materials and information to various researchers, thus, improving their research quality. Also, it is argued that open access lowers the cost of using traditional publication since the materials are always available online. Though some materials are presumed to have low quality, contrary most of the information obtained through open access method is found to be very useful.

Moreover, open access control has been attributed by various disadvantages, mainly through the cost incurred in the publication of such contents. Also, the poor quality of open access control has resulted in poor quality research. Hence, the researchers have opted for paid content, which guarantees the quality assurance of online materials and contents. However, the increasing use of web content has attributed to the high demand for open access content. Hence, researchers and learners have enhanced their learning experiences with the help of open-access information. According to research, more than 67% of the peer-reviewed journal has been used free of charge on the Internet. This indicates that open access sources are significant in research and academics in general.

References

Beall, J. (2010). “Predatory” open-access scholarly publishers. The Charleston Advisor, 11(4), 10-17.

Björk, B. C., Welling, P., Laakso, M., Majlender, P., Hedlund, T., & Guðnason, G. (2010). Open access to the scientific journal literature: situation 2009. PloS one, 5(6), e11273.

Heron, M., Hanson, V. L., & Ricketts, I. (2013). Open source and accessibility: advantages and limitations. Journal of interaction Science, 1(1), 2.