Open Access is important for faculty and students
Scholarly publishing must modernize to meet the needs of students and faculty. In Canada, much research is supported by public money, through tax payer supported governement intiatives or other charitable organizations. Faculty and students undertake research, write papers, create data, undertake peer-review, perform editorial services, and provide most of the intellectual work necessary for publishing. Libraries, also generally government and donor supported, buy back access to these materials via subscriptions, licenses, or straight out purchases. There is a perfect storm of rising costs and shrinking library budgets. While in the print realm, pre-internet publishing was difficult, today we have infinite ways to share information.
Graphic designed by Amy Collier, copyright owned by Creative Commons. CC BY
Open Access is a public good. It means that civil servants who are creating and writing policy have access to the latest reserach. It means that students in underserved communities can find information to help them achieve their goals and complete their schooling. it mean that parents of an ill child can access and read up on the latest research to have informed discussions with doctors and nurses about their child's care.
Further, open access allows for scientific discovery to happen more quickly and it makes it easier to find collaborators both with in disciplines and across discplines.
Open access benefits student and faculty authors because they retain their copyrights and are able to choose which rights they wish to waive. That means that they can use and reuse and share their work however they choose without having to seek permission from the copyright holder, the publisher. They can share their work via social media, or their website, or an institutional repository, without fear of getting a take down notice from a publisher. Open Access helps researchers build their brand and create an online scholarly identity, which can help them reach new graduate students, or find research partners, or to network, whatever their goals are.
Open Access works receive more attention, more citations and therefore achieve more impact. According to one article "OA articles receive 18% more citations than average, an effect driven primarily by Green and Hybrid OA" (Piwowar, et al., 2018)
In an age where one has to show one's value, being able to show how your work has been used and benefits your field is invaluable. It is easier to tell your own story when you have the ability to share your work with others online. You never know what might come of it.