To students leaving the academic world, the cost of information may come as a shock. Without access to the extensive collections of the McGill library, journal articles cost around 30 dollars per view. The library pays thousands of dollars per journal subscription. In 2011, McGill paid $12,224,900 for journals and research database access; thisrepresents more than 30 per cent of the Library budget. Open-access journals would make these costs a thing of the past.

Despite their expensive access fees, academic journals do not pay for the content they publish, and in many cases peer reviews are performed free of charge. Researchers must publish to stay relevant in their field, which is critical to job security. Tenure awards and funding sources consider volume of work published as well as the work’s impact factor, measured by the number of other papers that cite it.

In an open-access world, academic papers would be free for readers. The idea behind the Open Acces Movement is that removing financial barriers to peer-reviewed material would create a more productive exchange of ideas. Changing the cost structure of academic articles also appeals on a fundamental level, because it spreads scientific information.

Last month, McGill participated in a global event to raise awareness about the state of academic publishing. Open Access Week was conceived as a national day for open access in 2007 by two U.S. groups, and has grown every year since—in 2010, universities in 94 countries marked the event.

“It’s important for the community to think about what the ultimate results of their research will be. I would argue that most researchers want their work to be read by as many people as possible,” Amy Buckland, McGill library eScholarship, ePublishing, and  Digitization coordinator, said.

The McGill library participated in the week by holding several small workshops and promoting McGill’s own open-access repository—eScholarship@Mcgill.

The Open Access Movement faces several important challenges, nincluding the tenure and promotion process, which favours older, established journals that other researchers are more likely to cite. Although some journals are now offering open-access versions of their publication, “many publications [currently] use restrictive copyright transfer agreements which prohibit researchers from making their work publicly available via their own website, or their institution’s repository,” Buckland said.

Another hurdle is financing open-access journals. One proposal is to charge researchers for cost of editing and publishing.

Widespread changes to academic publishing may be a long time coming. “[Open access faces] many challenges, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy goal,” Buckland said.