Open Access:

Should one model ever fit all?

Publication of academic research serves four primary functions; archiving, registration, dissemination, and certification of the research. Until around 20 years ago, all four functions were mostly bundled together through publication in print media that were fairly uniform in process, though widely diverse in subject and geographical coverage, and with the end point being a research paper in a bound journal.

The arrival of the internet threatened to disrupt publishing substantially, and in many ways it has done so. But the changes we have seen have, until very recently, been more related to only the delivery of research via a different medium – electronic versus print. There has not yet been a widespread disruption of publishing business models, nor has there been a full exploitation of the innovative potential of the internet to reshape how research could be published. But that is now changing.