Legal and Ethical Issues

Open Access Research is a growing trend that many college students find helpful. Open Access is basically content free from licenses and subscriptions when used for research. This allows for more research to be done. How many times have I tried to read an article, but couldn't because the website required a subscription since their content is for premium users. I don't believe that all online articles and websites should follow this however. I think that you should have a choice to make your work private. However, if used for non-profit research, then I believe that the researcher should be able to view anything needed to aid his/her work. The question comes down to whether it is ethical to allow one person to view it for free while most everyone else has to pay for that service. In Joseph Havey's article, "Open Access Research Grows in Popularity," he talks about how beneficial this would be towards University Professors because it would increase readership.