The quagmire of open access : Availability, accessibility, and impact

Global intellectual property (IP) instruments, mostly favor a strong IP enforcement regime. While this is important, this chapter raises the need for Nigeria’s IP policies to embrace access to knowledge strategies. Scholarly works by authors are generally available but not easily accessible, thereby reducing their impact. This chapter explores the concepts of availability, accessibility, and impact of scholarly works by authors in developing countries (particularly Nigeria) and how it impacts the current access to knowledge movement. It examines how the structures and mechanisms around these concepts have constituted barriers to authors and users and recommends that Nigeria’s IP policy framework should adopt open access online publication strategies in addressing the problems of availability, accessibility, and impact. Arguments are based on a social contract and utilitarian perspective which see publication as the author’s readiness to make expressions of ideas available, accessible and impactful for purposes of seeking the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The chapter aims to demystify the open access quagmire around Nigerian works and suggests ways on how to navigate through the access/impact barriers and break the walls to enable not just availability but also accessibility and impact on works from developing countries.