Open Access Through a Bentley Perspective: Faculty Discuss Opportunities and Obstacles
October 20, 2025
It’s International Open Access Week from October 20-26. This week is a chance to celebrate the practice of making scholarly research articles freely available to all through Open Access (OA). Currently, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has compiled over 11 million OA articles in their database. This vast collection of scholarly knowledge is immensely useful to the public, but how do Bentley faculty view OA? We interviewed several Bentley faculty members who have published openly to gain their insights.
“Generally, I prefer to publish in open access journals. I collaborate a lot with scientists in developing countries with very limited budgets, and naturally the topics I tend to research are particularly relevant to people in low-income countries, so open access is often the only way to communicate with such an audience,” writes Anthony Kiszewski, Associate Professor in Natural Applied Sciences. As Kiszewski points out, most scholarly research sits behind paywalls that make it inaccessible to those who need it most. At Bentley, faculty and students have access to thousands of journals through Bentley Library's database subscriptions. However, what if you're not affiliated with a university? For researchers in developing countries, community practitioners, or members of the general public, accessing scholarly information is simply too expensive, and reading OA articles may be the only way to learn about vital research.
Dr. Arielle Scoglio, Assistant Professor in Natural and Applied Sciences, shares an example on those who lack institutional access to scholarly resources: “I often publish research related to mental health and interventions for mental illnesses like PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I want other researchers to be able to read my work, but perhaps more importantly, I want mental health clinicians and community counselors to be able to read my work (and hopefully find it helpful to their work!)” Scoglio also notes that, “People in these roles often lack access to a university or other academic library systems, which would pay for subscriptions to journals. In the past, I’ve had social workers email me directly and ask if I’d be willing to share a pdf of an article of mine, because they’d like to read it but don’t want to pay to subscribe to the journal or pay for access to that specific article. OA means that people don’t have to take any extra steps or use extra resources to read new health research.” Having articles free and instantly accessible to everyone is a great way to spread valuable information, so why aren’t all scholarly articles OA?
For many scholars, choosing to have their research OA is a complex issue. While OA improves accessibility for readers, it often introduces financial challenges for authors. Not all scholarly journals offer authors the ability to publish their research openly, and if they do, they often require an article processing charge (APC), or a fee required to make an article OA—which can be quite expensive. Scoglio notes, “the fact that the OA fee must be paid by the authors is in itself an accessibility issue because not all researchers have the monetary resources to publish open access. This means good researchers may not be able to publish in a high impact journal like JAMA Network Open, even if the journal is a good fit for their work, because they can’t come up with the $4000 fee.” While journals like JAMA do offer waivers and discounts for the APCs, it is with limited funds. Also, some universities are willing to pay for these APCs. However, for many, the APCs are entirely upon the authors to pay. At the same time, some scholars believe the price for the ability to publish openly is well worth it. For example, Dr. Mounia Ziat, an Associate Professor in Experience Design writes, “Some articles I paid on my own pocket/money. Even if the costs was high ($3,700), I did not mind paying for it. It is part of my professional work. The same argument is true when buying clothes to go to work, for example. Having a paper accessible to everyone is a way to share knowledge and science and foster collaboration.” However, not all scholars may have the ability to self-fund their research to be open.
There is also complication that while OA articles are technically more accessible to the everyday reader, they may not necessarily lead to more citations—which is a valuable metric for most scholars. For example, according to the article, Is the open access citation advantage real? (available through OA), the results were inconclusive if OA led to more citations—despite it being a notable talking point for many OA advocates. At the same time, Ziat has noted that her OA papers reach locations that she would never have expected, “I had a paper cited in Yahoo Taiwan … Another OA paper was cited in Psychology Today and was discussed in forums like Reddit.” The truth is possibly somewhere in the middle, and as Moinak Bhaduri, an Associate Professor in Mathematical Sciences, succinctly writes, “Free/Open Access may be a reasonably solid necessary step [towards citations and exposure], but definitely not a sufficient one.” Other factors—such as publishing in highly respected journals or university promotion of research—also play significant roles in citation rates.
In addition, there is a reputational challenge when it comes to OA: some scholars mistakenly associate all OA with predatory practices. According to Predatory journals: no definition, no defence, "[Predatory Journals] accept articles for publication — along with authors’ fees — without performing promised quality checks for issues such as plagiarism or ethical approval." Unfortunately, many of these predatory journals exploit the OA movement, creating confusion and stigma around legitimate OA publishing. This confusion often discourages scholars from embracing OA despite its benefits. “There are researchers who are reluctant to venture beyond (that is read or submit to) specific journals and there is a tendency to place an Open Access piece and a ‘predatory journal’ piece on the same footing,” writes Bhaduri. He also notes that, “Views are gradually beginning to change.” As OA becomes more common practice, with more reputable OA journals taking prominence, such as the PLOS and BMC journals, hopefully the negative association between OA and predatory practices will begin to dissipate.
Despite the complications, OA articles can be an immense benefit to students, scholars, and the general public. The faculty voices in this article demonstrate the real-world impact: Kiszewski's collaborations with scientists in developing countries, Scoglio's reach to community mental health counselors, and Ziat's unexpected citations in places like Taiwan all show how OA breaks down traditional barriers when it comes to paywalled information. While challenges like APCs and predatory journals persist, the fundamental mission remains clear. In an internet full of falsification and fabrication, making high-quality research freely available isn't just idealistic—it's essential for counterbalancing misinformation and ensuring that scholarly knowledge reaches those who need it most.
A special thank you to the Bentley faculty who were interviewed for this article. Consider reading some of their OA articles below:
Anthony Kiszewski, Associate Professor and Chair, Institutional Review Board, Natural and Applied Sciences
Dr. Arielle Scoglio, Assistant Professor, Natural and Applied Sciences
Dr. Moinak Bhaduri, Associate Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Dr. Mounia Ziat, Associate Professor, Experience Design