PhD Comics on Open Access

Originally, I was going to supply a weekly resource by posting a link to a paper I read last semester. The article, "The Citation Advantage of Open Access Article", by Norris, Oppenheim, and Rowland, describes a study that found open-access articles in several major disciplines tended to get more citations than toll-access articles in those same disciplines. Unfortunately, I don't have the right to repost that article myself from my class copy, and I couldn't find an open-access link to it anywhere online, even in the UW library system.

Instead, I found an interesting discussion of open access publishing and the issues around it, set to an animated cartoon. PhD Comics is a new site to me, but in 2012 they did a cartoon/video/discussion on open access publishing called "What is Open Access?". The discussion covers a lot of what we came across in the readings, but it brings up some new ideas too, as well as some personal anecdotes from the participants that illustrate a real-life need for open access, especially in medical or health-related publications. Also, I definitely find it easier to think about things like this with a visual aid to focus on, so this might be a nice option for others with a similar learning style.

"What is Open Access?"

by PhD Comics