Open access publishing

Let us have a look at the various twists and turns of the `open access publishing' movement that aims to make research publications available for free on the Net and allow anybody to read, copy and print them without any restrictions.

Open-source is one of the fascinating movements that originated on the Net and regular readers of this column need no introduction to this method of software development (http://www.opensource.org). Another movement, which shares some of the ethos of open-source philosophy that is slowly gaining prominence and attention is open access publishing, which attempts to free the research reports from the grip of established professional journals.

Issue

Literature that originates in research labs gets disseminated through major scientific journals, which are read by individuals who subscribe to them or have access to libraries that subscribe to them. Though numerous original research articles are being published in established multiple journals regularly, only a selected few in prestigious institutions can afford to access all of them.

Many thinkers feel that the exorbitant cost of professional journals prevents many gifted researchers from gaining the latest scientific knowledge and thereby hinders the smooth development of knowledge. The spectacular growth of web technology and transformation of the Net into a major publishing medium has persuaded some members of the scientific community to think of developing a different model for research publications.

Public Library of Science

This has led to the formation of a non-profit organisation, the Public Library of Science, PloS, (http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/). One of the objectives of PLoS is to make `the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible to scientists and to the public around the world'. PLoS took the initiative to circulate an open letter asking publishers to allow research reports published in their journals to be published on-line free by interested service providers. According to the PLoS' web site, this open letter has now been signed by more than 30,000 scientists in 179 countries.

Though the PLoS initiative has not fully succeeded in its endeavour to free research output from traditional publishers, the concept of open publishing — publishing content that can be accessed on-line for free — has gained enough popularity and attention.

Many on-line scientific-report repository creation projects that intend to bring together scientific literature available in various journals and store them in a common format, with the necessary interface that lets people easily access the content, are under way. The free digital archive, PubMed Central, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/, is a prominent example of a repository that contains archives of many established life science journals.

Another movement that has to be mentioned in this regard is the Budapest Open Access Initiative, BOAI, (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/)

created by the Open Society Institute. Though BOAI and PLoS have similar objectives and are formed to facilitate open access to research papers, they differ in one aspect. PLoS mainly aims to bring scientific literature into the open access format, whereas BOAI aims to bring all research publications into the open access sphere.

Apart from the non-profit open access publishing initiatives, a commercial venture is also in place. BioMedical Central, http://www. biomedcentral.com/, is a publishing house created for "providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research".

The publishers believe that free on-line access to research reports is a must for the advancement of knowledge and to sustain the open access method of publishing they are trying out innovative business models. Apart from using the usual revenue models like advertising, the publishing company charges the author or his/her sponsor. The company believes that free open access will result in the author benefiting more than anybody else, as more people will read his/her research work. So, instead of the readers of the article, the author of the article has to bear the cost of publishing.

It would be appropriate to mention another important development in this movement — the publication of a free journal by the publishing company BioMedical Central. It has started the publication of `Journal Biology' that publishes high-quality biological research articles. Papers accepted for publication will be published on the web within two weeks. The journal is available on the web at: http://jbiol.com/ and to access the content you just need to go through a simple one-time free registration process.

Web form filler

Generally, to access any web-based service you need to go through a registration process that involves filling up lengthy on-line forms. Though we hate this monotonous task, we have no alternative to accept this necessary evil. To prevent netizens from regularly going through the form filling drudgery, many programs capable of filling up forms automatically have been developed. In all these programs, one needs to create a master form with all the common fields that generally appear in a typical form. Once the form filler program is installed and set-up with the necessary data, it automatically gets fired whenever a form is accessed on the web. To get all the form fields filled up with appropriate data, you just need to click at the `Fill' button. Anyone interested in a form filler software can try out `Roboform', which is available for free at: http://www.roboform.com. After installing the software, you can create a master form, or an identity, with numerous fields that include your name, address, e-mail, phone number, bank account and username.