Last week, the journal Nature announced that it was offering researchers the option of making their publications available for free online. This allows people beyond the elite world of academic institutions to gain access to this research - a smart move for researchers who want their work read and utilized beyond the small world of academics who subscribe to these journals. As a field that seeks to provide information to people outside of academia—teachers, school leaders, non-profit organizations—the education research world should be a leader in providing free, online access to academic articles. Instead, much high-quality, peer-reviewed research is locked away in a multitude of expensive journals with little attempt to make the research affordable or easily accessible.

Yesterday, for example, I tried to access an article in a peer-reviewed education research publication. I tried getting the article through an education research database that Education Sector subscribes to—a database that is supposed to provide us with full text articles from this particular journal. But, as it turns out, there is a 12-month delay in getting articles from this journal. In order to get access to the most recent research, I would need to pay $30 for one article, which may or may not provide what I need—I don’t know because I only have the abstract on which to base my purchasing decision.

Note to academia: this is not an effective method for getting people to read or use your research.

I guess I’ll just have to turn to research from another think tank or policy organization—it may not be peer reviewed, but it’s accessible. And in a world with online access to nearly everything, that just may be more important.