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Tens of thousands of people in Hungary have taken part in a peaceful march against the government's plans to tax the internet - the second demonstration in three days.

Open access is an alternative publishing and distribution model that makes scholarly research literature-most of which is already funded by taxpayers around the world-freely available to the public online, without restrictions. Harnessing the power of the internet, open access brings the results of academic research to unprecedented numbers of scientists, university professors, medical researchers, patients, inventors, students, and others.

Argues that increasing corporate control is undermining the foundational values of higher education.

Here in Spain we have a similar evolution of higher education; private postgraduate private schools give masters that guarantee the access to top jobposts, but they are not focused on analysis, creativity and critical minds, but on pure business. What you need to be on your future job post is what you learn. Public institutions are still on air, but they are struggling with less and less public resources to survive. So I guess this is not only going on in USA.

Italy is going even worse...i'm an Adjunct Professor for maybe 1000 euro per year ... surviving by scholarships, call center mid term contracts, collaborations where i'm asked to pay for taxes the university should pay, all levels teaching.. I like "Some of the basic principles underlying effective pedagogy, such as small class size, individual attention and the importance of mentoring, are being sacrificed in order to increase head count, limit labor costs and create a one-size-fits-all educational experience." The problem is that universities are to make profits from fees (that's why they hire me instead of employing me) and offer any kind of courses, masters to increase their income! The problem is: how can we expect to increase the quality of learning as far as decisions are taking by political, business, organizational sides instead of scientific and educational ones?

A Video Community for Why Open Education Matters

This video was created in 2012, where the OER was already promoted, and I just learned about it in 2014. I guess there are still a lot of people who does not know about it. Now I wonder, what is going to change in the teacher's role? If there are more MOOC courses, does that mean the need of teachers will decline? When he mentioned that they use public funds to develop these Open Educational courses, does that mean the rise of taxes? Although I do support the OER, it is still developing, adjustments need to be made for the balance of these courses and the public sector.

I like this article. I think students are limited to get access to knowledge, resulting from distance, poverty, politics. Open education resources can reduce the distance, making people all around world join a same class. Free makes poverty students get chance to take courses which he couldn't afford before.

Just thought I'd share a Frequently Asked Question from the Library of Congress site. The answer highlights the antithesis of open access. One would think that the LOC would lead open access given that our tax dollars fund it and democracy requires an informed citizenry. What online databases and indexes does the Library make available to researchers on site? The Library subscribes to a large number of online subscription databases which offer indexes to journals, information on library holdings, and other resources in a wide range of subject areas. Workstations for searching these services are available in all of the Library's reading rooms. The Library also subscribes to a number of Internet-based databases and full-text journal services, which are searchable on any of the public Internet workstations in the Library's reading rooms. Patrons onsite using their personal laptops or other wireless-enabled devices to connect to the Library's wireless network are also able to access these services. The Library does not offer access to these services off-site, but they are widely available at public and academic libraries...."

The same situation with all "large number of online subscription databases of indexes and full-texts" only in the libraries in many countries and many libraries, not only LOC.

Breaking new ground for the open-access movement, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health research, plans to require that the researchers it funds publish only in immediate open-access journals. The policy doesn't kick in until January 2017; until then, grantees can publish in subscription-based journals as long as their paper is freely available within 12 months.

This serves as a significant catalyst to change the mentality of both the researcher and the funder. The Gates Foundation is a leading organization in resolving world health issues. This action demonstrates their drive and desire toward their cause; and will hopefully it will start a trend amongst authors and other research funding NGOS.

As mentioned in class discussions, this is the only reasonable response. Bill and Melinda have put their time forth into creating charities, and attempting to control content which was given from charitable grants is lunacy. It is comforting to see the Gates foundation scrapping the 6-12 month window of restriction. WIth this said that said, this draws interesting parallels with journals that receive government grants due to the fact that the privately sold resource is already being funded by the tax payers.

Open Access Week is less than a month away! Now in its eighth year, Open Access Week is an international event that celebrates the wide-ranging benefits of enabling open access to information and research-as well as the dangerous costs of keeping knowledge locked behind publisher paywalls.

Hi Kim, Thanks for sharing! Until now, I'd never heard of Open Access Week. I'd love to hear how both you and Federico have been involved in the past and what your communities (both online and off, local and nonlocal) have done to highlight open access during this week. I did a bit of searching, and it turns out that my school has a whole series of events planned for OEW, including some super interesting sounding lecture and a few documentary screenings. I'm very excited! http://oaweek.open.ubc.ca/ Amanda

Knowledge should be able to share with people, knowledge should not be trapped behind a paywall. For those who needs the information but couldn't get the information because they need to pay for it, this doesn't make any sense to me. So many paper and research by scientists are funding by government which the tax payers have contributed a lot on funding. Thus people should have access to those information.

From the Guardian: "How open-access journals are changing the field of peer-reviewed science"

that's an experience that can lead the way to scientific publishing after that of open archiving:http://scoap3.org/

I think there are real benefits to make the research available to everybody. Because. most of those research works are financed with tax payers money directly or indirectly. So why should there be this private monopolies milking the society and the scientists and blocking the knowledge to be spread?!!!