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...The RQF differs from existing international research assessment methods by considering res- earch impact in addition to the more conven- tional quality measures normally used in the academic community. This inclusion has created some controversy. Detractors argue that the inclusion of impact devalues the assessment process by moving beyond the scholarly domain, and that there may be undue emphasis on research that can demonstrably show shorter- term economic or other gains. An alternative view is that the absence of an assessment of impact seriously unbalances the evaluation of research and its importance to national and global priorities....

Google's book service raises monopoly and privacy concerns. It also holds great promise for increasing access to knowledge.

We used the databases of ISI and Ulrich's as our primary sources and estimate that the total number of articles published in 2006 by 23 750 journals was approximately 1 350 000.\nUsing this number as denominator it was also possible to estimate the number of articles which are openly available on the web in primary OA journals (gold OA). This share turned out to be 4.6 % for the year 2006. In addition at least a further 3.5 % was available after an embargo period of usually one year, bringing the total share of gold OA to 8.1%\nUsing a random sample of articles, we also tried to estimate the proportion of the articles published which are available as copies deposited in e-print repositories or homepages (green OA). Based on the article title a web search engine was used to search for a freely downloadable full-text version. For 11.3 % a usable copy was found. Combining these two figures we estimate that 19.4 % of the total yearly output can be accessed freely.

"Overcoming barriers: access to research information" a Research Information Network report

This report points out a major issue for researchers: it is often easy to FIND the content they need (through Web of Science or Google or PubMed) but it is difficult to ACCESS it. "The content is not available online (either through failure to be digitised or lack of licence purchasing) and licences for online content are seen to be too complex and sometimes restrictive of access for non-members of institutions; and institutions lack the technical and administrative capacity to overcome these issues."