30
The Battle for Open
others, or at least that prioritising some means less emphasis on others. One way of approaching openness is to consider the motivations people have for adopting an open approach. The following are some possibilities for such motivations, but by no means an exclusive list.
- Increased audience – The main aim here is to remove barriers to people accessing a resource, be it an article, book, course, service, video or presentation. This means it has to be free, easily shareable, online, and with easy rights. For example, Davis (2011) found that across 36 journals, those that were published under open access received significantly more downloads and reached a broader audience.
- Increased reuse – This is related to the previous motivation but differs slightly in that here the intention is for others to take what you have created and combine it with other elements, adapt it and republish. The same considerations are required as above, but with an extra emphasis on minimal rights and also creating the resource in convenient chunks that can be adapted. Whereas the first motivation might mean releasing an article online, the second motivation might lead someone to share the data that underlies it.
- Increased access – This is different from the first motivation in that the intention is to reach particular groups who may be disadvantaged. This may mean open access such that no formal entry qualifications are required to study. In this case open is not the same as free, since it may be that such learners require extra support, which is paid for in some way. Helping learners who often fail in
