Open Access-Philosophy, Policy, and Practice: A Comparative Study.

Open Access (OA), a movement aiming at providing free access to scholarly literature over the Internet, has recently gained enormous momentum. Although OA started with developed countries, it is appealing to developing countries and is spreading throughout the world quickly. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this paper outlines the concept of OA, various OA operational models, and key stakeholders. Built upon deep Web searches, this paper summarizes and describes major OA projects in the developing countries with focused discussions on major issues in OA development in China. Aiming at gaining first-hand data, the authors interviewed six prominent Chinese scholars and analyzed their perspectives of OA development in China. In addition, this paper evaluates the similarities and differences of OA development by using the developed counties as best practice benchmark. This paper concludes with suggestions and recommendation of improved research methods and questions for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]