Via Open Access News:

I propose four main reasons as to why Open Access is beneficial for the way scholarly research is carried out and how its findings are used, and is thus incontrovertibly beneficial for human society as a result. I mention the latter because the stakeholders are, after all, not just the immediate players in the game: we all have stakes in there, too – researchers, research institutions, nations and global society as a whole. We all have an interest in the efficient and effective progress of scholarly endeavour. The reasons I offer, then, for why Open Access is the way to go are these:

1. Open Access means there is greater visibility and accessibility, and thus impact from scholarly endeavour
2. Open access means there is more rapid and more efficient progress of scholarly research
3. Open Access means there can be better assessment, better monitoring and better management of science
4. Open Access means that novel information can be created using new computational technologies

These are not just personal hunches. There is evidence for each….

From a pre-print called Open Access: Why should we have it?