The article linked below was recently published by Science.

Title

Open Access is Shaping Scientific Communication

SKEMA Business School, Sophia Antipolis, Valbonne, France

Université Côte D'Azur, Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG), Sophia Antipolis, Valbonne, France

Frank Mueller-Langer

Department of Business Administration, University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Neubiberg, Germany

Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Germany

Recognizing the importance of ensuring access to taxpayer-funded scientific knowledge and underlying data, many national governments and supranational institutions have been supporting the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities as far back as 2003. More recently, they have been implementing mandates to establish open access (OA) to scientific publications and underlying data. In this work, we examine the effects of related OA mandates and agreements on scientific communication for both the broader scientific community as well as the science communication and science policy communities. We outline key contemporary unknowns and avenues for continued research. We also explore the effects of OA "big deals" (where one or more universities and a single publisher negotiate the fees for publishing in any of the latter's journals) and the bundling of publishing and data contracts on prices and market structure.

Direct to Full Text Article + Links to Supplementary Material (about 2700 words)