Open access: six myths to put to rest
Peter Suber, The Guardian, October 24, 2013

Peter Suber dispels six myths about open access:

1. The only way to provide open access to peer-reviewed journal articles is to publish in open access journals
2. All or most open access journals charge publication fees
3. Most author-side fees are paid by the authors themselves
4. Publishing in a conventional journal closes the door on making the same work open access
5. Open access journals are intrinsically low in quality
6. Open access mandates infringe academic freedom

Again, these are myhts. None of them is true.

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FutureLearn is go, but it is not quite the finished article
Chris Parr, Times Higher Education, October 24, 2013

The early reviews on the launch of FutureLearn are in (FutureLearn is the Open University's foray into MOOCs): "Compared with the other Moocs, we have very manageable numbers – substantially less than the courses with broader appeal – but that is exactly what we wanted so that we can plan for future Moocs accordingly." I signed up for a course that started in october, but I can't really say I've noticed it yet (that doesn't mean I received no emails, it means the emails prompted no further activity).

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