Where Did the Open Access Movement Go Wrong?

Richard Poynder has long been one of the most respected and insightful commentators on the scholarly communication ecosystem, and in particular on the development and progress of the open access (OA) movement. Recently he announced that he has decided the OA movement has failed, and that he is turning his attention to other topics and issues. He explained his decision by stating, "I did not want to spend any more time chronicling a movement that had promised a great deal but has failed to deliver on its promise and seems unlikely to do so."

The Essence of the Failure

Open access was intended to solve three problems that have long blighted scholarly communication – the problems of accessibility, affordability, and equity. 20+ years after the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) we can see that the movement has signally failed to solve the latter two problems. Poynder notes that the OA movement “has failed and is being rebranded in order to obscure the failure.” Consequently, the OA dream of “universal open access” remains a dream and seems likely to remain one.

Comparison of Open Access Goals vs. Current Reality

• Accessibility: Intended to provide universal access, but with the geopolitical situation deteriorating, solving the accessibility problem now looks to be at risk.
• Affordability: Intended to reduce costs, but the pay-to-publish gold OA model and its infamous article processing charge (APC) look set to increase the cost of scholarly publishing.
• Equity: Intended for global inclusion, yet the current system has disenfranchised unfunded researchers and those based in the global south.

Structural and Organizational Deficiencies

The fundamental problem was that OA advocates did not take ownership of their own movement. They failed, for instance, to establish a central organization (an OA foundation) in order to organize and better manage the movement; and they failed to publish a single, canonical definition of open access. It did not help that the BOAI definition failed to specify that to be classified as open access, scholarly works needed to be made freely available immediately on publication and that they should remain freely available in perpetuity.

The Rise of the Pay-to-Publish Model

This failure to take ownership saw responsibility for OA pass to organizations whose interests are not necessarily in sync with the objectives of the movement. This allowed publishers to co-opt OA for their own purposes, most notably by introducing embargoes and developing the pay-to-publish gold OA model. Nor did the movement give sufficient thought to how OA would be funded. Pay-to-publish OA is now the dominant form of open access and looks set to worsen the affordability problem.

Researcher Engagement and Mandatory Compliance

OA was conceived as something that researchers would opt into. The assumption was that once the benefits of open access were explained to them, researchers would voluntarily embrace it – primarily by self-archiving their research in institutional or preprint repositories. But while many researchers were willing to sign petitions in support of open access, few proved willing to practice it voluntarily. In response to this lack of engagement, OA advocates began to petition universities, funders, and governments to intervene through mandates and policy changes.