Five Reasons to Promote Open Access

I just read an interesting and important paper on Open Access:

Armbruster, Chris
2005 Five Reasons to Promote Open Access and Five Roads to Accomplish it in Social and Cultural Science. Social Science Research Network, Working Paper Series.

Here is a summary of the main points:

Five Reasons to Promote Open Access:

1. Facilitating the advancement of knowledge claims.
2. Enabling globally inclusive scholarly communication.
3. Accounting for the rise of comparative and trans-national research.
4. Increasing public visibility and enhancing impact for teaching and learning.
5. Opening an innovative space for publishing, peer review and scholarly exchanges.

Five Roads Towards Open Access:

1. Start an open access journal and give preference to submission to open access journals.
2. Deposit your papers in a disciplinary or institutional open access e-print repository.
3. Assert your moral rights as author and retain the copyright when you publish.
4. Work to ensure lifelong access for university alumni to electronic libraries.
5. Help to spread discounted and free access in low-income countries.