Dear Colleagues,

There is not an accurate date for the birth of open access scholarly outputs. However, “open access” was first defined in 2002,  during the the Budapest Open Access Initiative. At the beginning, some sceptics believed that this could be the result of a naïve community, who claimed for more visibility and access to research publications. However, open access drums have begun to spread and initiatives around the movement have begun to emerge. The green route, that is, the depositing of copies of research results in open access repositories, and the gold route, that is, the publishing of open access journals, have become familiar among researchers. The creation of institutional repositories, the emergence of new journal business models, the technological implementations that lead to interoperability between systems, the services created over repositories, and the institutional and funder policies in favor of open access to science, have made researchers aware of the benefits of open access and incorporate open access in their customary practices for distributing and sharing their research and academic outputs. On the other hand, open access is not limited to scientific publications; it covers other types of digital objects, such as monographs, theses, e-learning materials, audiovisual stuff, research data or any other digital piece. In this sense, research data are gaining importance, as can be seen from governmental statements, guidelines, and funder mandates. Sharing raw data can generate new results, avoid duplication, and create new services and products, as a result of their harvest and aggregation. Open access does not mean “pay to publish,” does not mean predatory publishing, does not mean lowering quality standards, but the sharing and reuse of pieces that are mostly publicly funded.

I would like to finish this brief discussion about open access with portions of two speeches made by Neelie Kroes, the former European Commission Vice-President responsible for the Digital Agenda. The first one was made during the open access week in 2011:
“I am a fan of open access and innovation. OA to scientific information allows more benefits of science for education and innovation.  Access cannot be a luxury for Europe, it is a  must… The results of publicly funded research should be spread as widely and quickly as possible.” (1)

The second speech was made during the Research Data Alliance Launch and First Plenary:
“I have no doubt that we are entering that phase [the era of open science] and that the impact will be good for citizens, good for scientists, and good for society. Whether it is scientific results, the data they are based on, the software used for analysis, or the educational resources that help us teach and learn, being more open can help, and can transform every discipline from astronomy to zoology, and make our lives better.” (2)

Both pieces articulately reflect the potential of open access and introduce the next new paradigm, that of open science, which encompasses the whole research life cycle, from the conception to the dissemination of research data and results.

This Special Issue will try to cover the different issues and features of open access to scholarly outputs: interoperability, legal issues, publication ethics, open research data, new metrics and OA,  visibility, accountability, OA policies and compliance, journal business models, young researchers and open access, open education, open evaluation tools, etc.

(1)Neelie Kroes (2011).  EU Commissioner Kroes on Open 2011 and Open Access. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAkf7VmpQ5M&feature=player_embedded&mid=50.
(2) Neelie Kroes (2013).  Opening up scientific data. Available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-236_en.htm

Remedios Melero
Guest Editor

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