Why Open Access?

Open Access is about increasing the opportunity for everyone to freely access research outputs. But why should we do that? Why should we change the current way of sharing research results and create a new more open system? This lesson looks into the history of academic publishing and presents motivations for changing it. 

After completing this lesson you will: 

•  Understand the history of closed and Open Access 
  
• Be familiar with reasons for promoting Open Access 
  
• Understand benefits of Open Access to individual researchers 
  
• Be familiar with Open Access requirements by funding bodies