Let's be Open

So in the last few months I have done something I never really expected to do; I applied for a PhD on Open Access. Now don't get over excited because I didn't get it, and in retrospect it might be a good thing. I wasn't particularly disappointed not to get it, and I suspect that project is better placed with someone not in full-time employment. But, it would have been great to do something that would actually have an impact on Open Access. Anyway, it did revitalise my interest in reading and writing about OA, or I think more accurately making information more accessible. That's probably the key here. Information can be as open as it likes but if it isn't accessible, if it is impenetrable to most people then it's 'real impact factor' is negligible. Having spent some time looking it OA literature (for the PhD proposal) it does seem as though impact factor is an academic obsession, which is understandable if completely uninteresting to a non-academic. Alt