The open access movement in China

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe the current status of open access (OA) in China, including problems and possible solutions and to introduce the role of the academic library in OA. Design/methodology/approach -This research paper analyzes several successful OA projects with a focus on the user requirements and the role of the academic library. The paper also analyzes the current status of OA in three areas. First, publishers. The paper will introduce some Chinese OA websites in detail, and point out the problems facing Chinese OA. Second, OA users (both writers and readers) requirements will be investigated. Third, the role of libraries will be analyzed. Findings -The libraries goal of sharing resources is similar to that of the OA movement. The paper will recommend some Chinese OA resources set up by libraries. The paper will also describe OA promotion by China libraries. Some suggestions for the way forward are also described.Research limitations/implications -The paper will analyze OA development and problems in China from a librarian perspective. The paper does not have a deep understanding of the publishing business. Most of the best Chinese academic papers are published in foreign commercial academic journals, which costs Chinese writers their intellectual property rights since their rights of communication through the internet is then owned by foreign publishers. As a result, most products based on public investment in China become a foreign publisher's exclusive property, earning exclusive profit for them rather than for China. This situation exists not only in China, but also in other developing countries. This "problem" is worth researching. Practical implications -A comprehensive introduction to the current state of OA in China will be useful to those who are unfamiliar with, or seek deeper knowledge of, the Chinese situation. The constructive suggestions to be offered should be useful to Chinese administrators, OA publishers and librarians.Originality/value -This may be the first research paper describing the status of OA in China in summary and in detail, with an analysis of the problems in OA development and offering recommendations.

Researchers' perspectives on open access scholarly communication in Tanzanian public universities

“…The other reasons that were highly ranked included: the likelihood that open access publications would be misused or plagiarised (51%); the general perception that open access publications were of low quality compared to traditional publications (55,2%); and researchers' worry about the long-term availability of open access publications (35,4%). These findings corroborate previous studies that found that uncertainties over later publishing of open access articles elsewhere, violation of publishers' copyrights, and plagiarism of open access papers are among the cited respondents' deterrents for their contribution to institutional repositories (Fang and Zhu 2006;Foster and Gibbons 2005;Hirwade and Rajyalakshmi 2005;Kim 2006;Pickton 2005;Ware 2004;Xu 2005). It is necessary to address these challenges to foster the adoption of open access in Tanzania and other institutions elsewhere with a similar research environment.…”

Commenting on Western Open Courses by Chinese Learners

“…In East Asia, Japan is the earliest and most energetic adopter with a great number of digital repositories established (Xia, 2012). Conversely, China is a slow adopter, possibly because of its different scholarly and educational tradition that tolerates the behavior of copying small portions of the others’ work without providing proper citations (Fang & Zhu, 2006; Zhang, 2010). The scholarly community in China is not passionate about making research free for others to share, and therefore has not created a culture of openness (Xia, 2012).…”

Interoperability of open access repositories in computer science and IT – an evaluation

“…Bravo and Diez (2007) found that there is a little development of institutional repositories in Spain, although a growing tendency to create them is detected. Study by Fang and Zhu (2006) discovered that OA is not widespread in China. The barriers are various and derive from the publishers, users and governmental policy.…”