Brian D. Wade

Open Access Publication

For me, open access journals provide two prominent, equally important advantages over subscription-only or delayed access ones. 1) Many of them grant authors the copyright of their article through Creative Commons licenses. 2) Open access journals allow any researcher, regardless of the financial status of their company or institution, immediate access to the most current knowledge. Furthermore, while open access publication does have uncertainties and authors have expressed concerns, particularly regarding quality, an article in PLoS Biology concluded that open access articles are twice as likely to be cited than non-open access ones in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, a journal that publishes both ways. Given this, and if you have not previously thought about such an approach to publication, please take a moment to consider publishing your next article in an open access journal.