open access
JISC/OSI report on author attitudes toward OA
Open Access News led me to this survey from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Open Society Institute (OSI) on authors' attitudes toward open access. Significant in the excecutive summary are the observations about citation:
The primary reason for choosing an open access outlet in which to publish is a belief in the principle of free access to research information. Over 90% of open access authors said this is important. These authors also perceive open access journals as being faster than traditional journals, having a larger readership and thus resulting in higher numbers of citations to their work. In contrast, the non-open access author group perceive open access journals as having slower publication times, a smaller readership and receiving fewer citations.
As open access gains wider reception among all researchers, note that the trend will be for authors to perceive open access as a faster way to disseminate knowledge and a way to become more widely cited. Assuming that recent trends continue in libraries having to drop subscriptions to journals, I would imagine that we could see smaller, not-for-profit journals switch to open access models to
- Promote a wider readership base.
- Cut cost by moving their journals to electronic publishing only to offset loss in revenue from reduced subscriptions.
- Increase the likelihood their articles will be cited in other publications. Researchers, after all, will be drawn to the journals which are most likely to get their articles cited since tenure and promotion is in part based on frequency of citation.
Black Arts of the Science Mags
For those that still aren't convinced of the importance of the Open Access movement, read Simon Caulkin's article in today's Guardian Observer (link courtesy of Open Access News). Caulkin's article succinctly pulls the major points of the open access debate together. For example, as he points out quite clearly,
How's this for a winning publishing formula? A university funds scientific research; the research is turned into a paper by an author, who pays a colour illustration and reprint charge - say, £1,000 - and surrenders the copyright for the privilege of publishing his findings in a specialised journal. Peers review the work for free, then the publisher prints the article - and sells it back for a hefty fee to the institution where the work was carried out in the first place.
. . . .
Over the past two years, protests at the unfairness of the current system have mounted. Having paid once to produce new scientific knowledge, funding agencies and scientists argue, why should taxpayers and charitable bodies have to pay again to use it?
Bookmarks Related to Research on IP and Open Content
In case anyone is interested, I've exported my Mozilla Firefox bookmarks related to my dissertation research. Note that it does not contain any articles which I have downloaded and saved, although many of those are in the working bibliography. As with the working bibliography, I intend to update this list in the future.
More on The Devil Is in the Details: Exercising Our Right Not to Read
I made a background image for this post today to make a point in relation to The Devil Is in the Details. When publishers and authors exercise what they see as a right of content owners to specifically prescribe how readers may use a text in ways that inhibit fair use, they forget about the one major right of readers, one that is increasingly being emphasized within the open access movement. For example, the open letter from PLoS states,
To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September 2001, we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally subscribe to only those scholarly and scientific journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free distribution rights to any and all original research reports that they have published, through PubMed Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months of their initial publication date.
Meanwhile, faculty senates are voting to drop database publication supplier Elsevier. Consider this quote from a resolution passed by Indiana University Bloomington Faculty Council :
Copyright, Access and Digital Texts
Just found out that my article urging writing teachers to consider open source, open content and Creative Commons, Copyright, Access and Digital Texts, is now available at Across the Disciplines.
But I was saddened when I saw Will Hochman's review, The Ongoing Legacy of Wendy Bishop Is In Our Stories: a Review of The Subject is Story: Essays for Writers and Readers, Edited by Wendy Bishop and Hans Ostrom, listed on the same page of Across the Disciplines. Wendy Bishop is my former dissertation advisor who died from complications of leukemia treatments last November. She is sorely missed :(
Just Say No to Exploitative Publishers of Science Journals
Commons-blog notes this piece by Christopher Reed in the 20 Feb 2004 edition of The Chronicle (non-subscribers try this current free link to the text). Reed makes a good point about how subscription databases are taking over one of the roles of the library:
In the 1960s, departmental journal collections were centralized to gain economies of scale. Now, with electronic access and bundled price deals from publishers, the storehouse of knowledge has been further centralized and relocated to the computers of commercial publishing houses and professional societies. Like it or not, publishers have become the de facto libraries of the world. They know it and are exploiting it for unseemly financial gain. The average price of Elsevier journals has increased at three times the rate of the Consumer Price Index over the past 16 years. Elsevier profits were up 26 percent in 2002.
