Quality of grey literature in the open access era: Privilege and responsibility |
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| Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">Paola?De?CastroEmail author Sandra?Salinetti |
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| Institution: | (1) Servizio per le Attività Editoriali, Istituto, Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161, Rome, Italy |
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| Abstract: | Conclusions We are living a deep change in the information transfer process involving the different actors of the editorial scene (from
authors to editors, web-editors, e-publishers and readers), who occasionally play different roles at the same time (e.g.,
authors sometimes bypass the editor thus assuming direct responsibilities in the diffusion of documents in the Internet).
Furthermore, information producers, managers or seekers often show twofold personalities like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They
would like to find all documents free on the Internet and be able to read original, reliable, and high quality information,
but they are sometimes reluctant to spread their papers through online nonofficial channels as they care for the impact factor,
prestige, and career advancement.
It is a revolutionary period in which new and alternative forms of scholarly communication live together with more traditional
ones and the future is difficult to define. Recent initiatives of open access—such as Pubmed Central, Public Library of Science,
Budapest Open Access Initiative—are contributing to define new trends in the editorial market, challenging the traditional
distribution channels, mainly managed by commercial editors, and placing the authors’ role and publication copyrights under
severe discussion.
In this landscape, GL now has new dignity and becomes closer and closer to innovative scientific publications supported by
researchers in view of a generalised movement towards open access. The nuances of grey are becoming lighter and lighter. The
questions are many, the answers few, but, in any case, the ethical responsibility of producing and issuing quality documents
can never be disregarded. |
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