Question: Explain the advantages and disadvantages to a content producer of making their materials freely available online.
In Singapore, censorship is a heavily debated topic. Censorship review committee are formed every year to review films and adjust the rating of the movies or shows. (Teo, 2011) Hence it is common and understandable that content producers would prefer to move on to online platform whereby freedom of speech may seem to be in abundance and sharing is caring.
Open Access (OA) refers to unrestricted online access to research done students or lecturers. Here’s a video about all you need to know about Open Access.
Advantages
Hence, while a person may argue that nothing is for free, OA grants free knowledge to those who crave for it. One great website that I thoroughly enjoy is Coursera! Coursera grants students and users free access to lectures by prestigious universities such as National University of Singapore or Brown University.
Visibility is one key advantage. For example, when a faculty member publishes a paper, they hope that viewers would see it and give feedback. In the land of the internet, everybody has an opportunity to see what is uploaded.
Another advantage is that it increases the pace of research, with OA I would not need to run to libraries or speak to a billion professors to understand a topic when I could just pull out a research done by them and ask questions when necessary. Overall, speeding up discovery and innovation. (Sparc.arl.org, 2014)
Disadvantages
Publication fees is the first issue I would like to bring up. While access information is free, somebody has to pay for it to be published. This results in researchers being denied OA due to the lack of funds. (Edanzediting.com, 2013)
The second issue is the lack of control over the quality of work done. While this is not an issue for respectable researchers, some may argue that OA encourages researchers to post more so as to cover the cost of publication. While it is a business aspect of OA, it also involves quality whereby the quantity takes priority over quality. (Edanzediting.com, 2013)
In conclusion, there are pros and cons of OA. But the main purpose of OA is to help students and researchers all over the world to gain more knowledge and make knowledge more widely accessible.
References
Edanzediting.com, (2013). Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Access | edanz editing global. [online] Available at: http://www.edanzediting.com/blog/advantages_and_disadvantages_open_access#.VIc2OL4ughM [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Sparc.arl.org, (2014). Why Open Access?. [online] Available at: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa [Accessed 9 Dec. 2014].
Teo, Y. (2011). Media law in Singapore. Singapore: Sweet & Maxwell Asia.
vanessalisoton.wordpress.com 
Hi Vanessa,
It was a great post there! 😉
I agree with the points you mentioned under advantages and disadvantages of content producers online. Coursera is one good example that I thought was useful and it was also mentioned by Ibrahim- https://ebrahimshakir.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/i-got-my-degree-for-0/ , such free content site helps anyone of any age to be more motivated to learn and sign up for courses. This helps to keep information and ideas going, increase the knowledge of learners especially in the developing countries where Education is poor. The idea of Censorship in Singapore is one of the many reasons why Open Access is beneficial.
As we all know, journals and articles need to be paid in times for us to view the whole essay. Do you think there are any tools to implement an ‘institutional open access policy’ where students can get to view useful articles that might help in projects and research? I believe such system would help to reduce the risk and fear of misuse and quality of work done because it is only catered to schools and educators. What do you think?
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