A paradigm shift: the implications of the open access publishing model In the framework of the publishing process as a whole, is this organizing model still acceptable? In the Internet I-BET151 cost era the dissemination of scientific contents is mainly based on the use of online platforms superseding the strategy of commercial publishing used in the past

to produce print journals and circulate them within the research community worldwide. At present, the innovative technologies of production and transmission of information in the net have generated models of scientific communication founded on the concept of free access to knowledge within a global context. In this regard, libraries, academies, learning societies and research institutions are increasingly committed to promote advocacy actions intended to gain free access to research findings – especially if resulted from publicly funded studies – beyond all types of barriers (technological, economic and legal ones). This is the scenery in which the principles of open access publishing movement flourished. The scientific communication system starts to contrast the hegemony of commercial publishing

and moves forward direct transmission ZD1839 concentration of research results to the users (readers) by claiming free access to scientific knowledge, thus opening to a mechanism Selleck AZD9291 of disintermediation [4]. Briefly, open access literature is commonly recognized as synonym of free and unrestricted online availability of contents. A concise, but effective definition of open access is given by Peter Suber in “”A very brief introduction to open access”": Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder [5]. The OA movement started in 1991 thanks to the set up of ArXiv, the first repository of pre-prints in the field of physics. In 2001 the Open Archives Initiative

Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) was created in order to define a standard procedure for unambiguously identifying metadata encoded in multiple formats, thus making repositories interoperable. There exist two complementary strategies to achieve open access to scholarly journal literature: self-archiving which refers to the deposit of journal articles by the same scholars in digital archives compliant to OA standards (OA green route); publishing on open access journals which are freely accessible online but usually charge publication fees to MX69 clinical trial authors wishing to publish on them (OA golden route). Both routes are stated in the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) launched in 2002 which represents a milestone of the open access movement.