OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT

OPEN ACCESS

THE OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT

I have not been studying for a while now, like in over a decade. So coming back to the academic life this year has been a new experience. In the manner of accessing information and adjusting to being a student, whilst being full time employed and being a mom.

So ever since I have started with studying this year. In every lecture I have heard about this thing called ‘Open Access’. It sort of made you feel ignorant about not knowing about the ‘Open Access’ movement.

Well in our last class, we had a session on ‘Open Access’. Now, I don’t feel ignorant any longer and now when anyone speaks about ‘Open Access’ I fully understand what it means.

First of all I think the logo that represents the ‘Open Access’ movement is quite brilliant. It is a perfect match. Personally, I just love when two things are compared to each, one can quickly catch it. The lock is open, meaning that access to, is free. That is what open access refers to, free access to information that has been previously not free.

My late mom always told me “Maya…you must never stop learning. You must acquire knowledge from the cradle to the grave”. 

This taught me that it is always important to learn new things. Learning should never be viewed as a burden. It should be a part of your life. 

The ‘Open Access’ movement basically refers to making academic research available to all, irrespective of your wealth status.  It’s considered to be unfair that, people whom and tertiary institutions whom are rich and affluent are the only ones whom, can access new and relevant academic research. The movement motivates that academic research be made available to all universities and to everyone who are interested in accessing that information.

So I do agree with the open access movement, mainly for the fact that all people and universities can have access to information and that one needs not to be rich in order to do so. This means that everyone can benefit from the research and this helps to take research forward. Perhaps if it was the cure for Aids, some researcher could benefit from researchers whom has conducted research on Aids in Switzerland for example, another researcher in Swaziland could access their research and formulate a cure for Aids by combing their new research with his research. Where if it was not for the open access movement, then the researcher in Switzerland wasn’t able to purchase the journals of the research conducted by the researchers in Swaziland and then the researcher from Swaziland would never have been able to collobrate the two research studies together to form the cure for Aids.

I think that we should learn from our history from the past centuries, where there has always been a discrepancy between the haves and the have nots. We know that, in the past these discrepancies has never benefitted anyone. So too, indeed we will benefit from making academic research available to all, as allowing for these discrepancies to prevail will cause a delay in creating new knowledge.

I am glad that our university has signed to join in on the ‘Open Access’ movement when they signed the Berlin Declaration on OpenAccess to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. It shows that we are proud to be African researchers and that we can also contribute to forming new knowledge.

 The above comic-strip explains the OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT nicely in a humerous manner.