Open access academic publishing

The traditional academic publishing process is flawed. Tax-money funded research is published in journals that are only available through very expensive subscriptions. The public gets charged twice (for the research and access to the publications). Research should be made more accessible so  it can be used for decision-making and further research.

You can learn about open access academic publishing at Open Access Week: http://www.openaccessweek.org/

You can get open access to scientific publications here:

• Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.doaj.org/home
• The Public Library of Science (PLoS): http://www.plos.org/

The video below, illustrated by Jorge Cham from PhD Comics, discusses some of the main elements of the open access debate: