Topic 5

Topic 5: Reflection

Posted on by Vanessa Li

Reading my classmate’s blogs, there are so many advantages and disadvantages that are similar yet I have not talked about. As this topic involves all of us in the world of academia, all of us do have some sort of passion towards it.

After commenting on Elisha’s and Xiu Zhen’s post, I can infer that the objective of the content producer is extremely important as publishing a document do cost. The objective does affect the quality of the journal which in turns affects the knowledge gathered by students. Hence it is a circle which could potentially lead to OA’s downfall due to the failing quality.

Daphne mentioned a quote from Lisa.

“If a service is free, you are the product”.

This made me really think about the whole concept of the internet. The computer was made for connectivity. It was redundant as a solo device, it need other computers to transmit information. Hence it is very much similar to OA. Whereby the constant flow of journals and articles being transferred from one faculty member to another and another made it all a big, exploding bubble of knowledge, innovation and discovery.

Lastly, after reading Kelly’s reflection, I do realise that this sort of program needs sustainability and one method of sustainability is giving recognition for the hard work of the researchers who willingly give us access to works that sometimes take lifetime to complete.

In conclusion, I feel that OA has created a community of educators and learners, people who take knowledge seriously. I think that is a good method of sustaining education in this extremely fast paced world whereby information becomes obsolete extremely quickly.

Topic 5: Freely available content

Posted on by Vanessa Li

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

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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.