Dear all,
Welcome to our discussion on Open Access, supported by Oxford PharmaGenesis. A special welcome to all (100+) who have joined us in the past several days. We look forward to learning from your experience and expertise. To contribute, please send an email to: hifa@hifaforums.org You can review past messages on our RSS feed here: https://www.hifa.org/rss-feeds/17
Here again is our landing page for further information: https://www.hifa.org/news/hifa-announces-deep-dive-discussion-healthcare...
The HIFA Open Access working group proposes the following guiding questions:
1. What is the impact of open access (OA) on health care?
2. What is your experience of OA as a healthcare professional/reader?
3. What is your experience of OA as a researcher/author?
4. How would you design an OA system that retains the benefits but fixes the problems of the current OA system?
5. Open discussion and next steps.
Feel free to comment on any aspect of open access.
This week (13-20 October) we are looking at Q1: What is the impact of open access on health care?
I note the previous message from Uzodinma Adirieje (Nigeria) message where he writes: "I expect that participants will gain a clear understanding of how open access enhances research visibility, collaboration, and global impact, especially for scholars like me who are in resource-constrained low- and middle-income countries" And Rabia Khaji (Tanzania): "To me, open access is not only about removing paywalls, but about removing barriers between evidence and impact, between research and real-life change." Also Joanna Donnelly (United Kingdom) who writes: "Open access publishing ensures that the highest quality peer-reviewed evidence is available to anyone who needs it, anywhere in the world. This has the potential to improve transparency, advance medical science and, we believe, improve patient care."
We are especially interested to hear actual practical examples and observations. For example, can you describe a situation where (lack of) access to the full text of a paper has impacted on the care of a patient?
We look forward to your contributions: hifa@hifaforums.org
Many thanks, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org