Open Access in Educational Research: Insights From Large-Scale Analysis in the Past 40 Years

• In Event: Changing Landscapes Within Higher Education Policy

Abstract

There is a now a growing open science movement. One aspect of open science is open access (OA) in which research publications are made freely available to anyone. OA has rapidly transformed many fields but what about in education? To address this question, we used our newly curated metadata of 1 million publications in the field of education in the past 40 years. In contrast to other fields, educational research is still largely closed. Ever more publications are behind paywalls, in large proportions including in top journals and institutions, and from top-producing countries. This is despite clear impact advantage of OA. Our research provides the necessary empirical data with which to further inform the OA debate in educational research.

Authors

• Vamsi Grandhi, Nanyang Technological University

• Farhan Ali, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education