Publishing is at the heart of academic research culture, and in the digital age it’s undergoing some radical changes.
Today, fully one-third of all peer-reviewed journals are “Open Access.” These 10,000 journals provide free, public access to more than 1.7 million articles — a very different model than the traditional journal, typically run and managed by a publisher that charges a subscription fee. The number of Open Access articles authored by Dal researchers has grown dramatically in the past six years, from just over 50 in 2007 to a total of 300 in 2013.
Open Access is a noted topic of debate in the scholarly community, touching on everything from models for sales and royalties to requirements from funding agencies. This week is International Open Access week and, to mark the occasion, the HÂţ» Libraries are hosting a series of events and discussions on the subject.
Thursday is a public panel discussion on “Differing Perspectives on Open Access.” Facilitated by University Librarian Donna Boune-Tyson, it will feature Julia M. Wright (professor of English and associate dean, research in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), Geoff Brown (digital scholarship librarian, HÂţ» Libraries), and Jonathan Crago (editor-in-chief, McGill Queen’s University Press.) The event goes from 4-5:30 p.m. in room 224 of the Student Union Building.
Then on Friday, Nick Lindsay, journals director at MIT Press, will talk about the division’s experience with open access and the future of OA. The presentation will be live via Skype, and starts at 1 p.m. in room 2616 in the Killam Memorial Library.
All week the HÂţ» Libraries are publishing content about the Open Access debate and discussion . Below are two of the perspectives shared on the topic: a post from Geoff Brown, Dal’s digital scholarship librarian, and one from Randall Martin, Killam professor in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science and the Department of Chemistry.
Geoff Brown, Digital Scholarship Librarian
“Scholarly publishing is broken in a simple but fundamental way and that’s what’s at the heart of the push towards Open Access publishing,” says Brown.
“The reason scholars publish is to communicate with each other and with students. That’s the primary goal. There are certainly other short term objectives such as tenure and promotion but in the larger context, scholars publish in order to communicate…The Open Access publishing movement removes the toll on readers and this has resulted in a renewed interest in author rights management.
“When content is made freely available for all to read, there is little or no need for publishers to require that authors transfer their copyright to the publisher. In fact, in the context of scholarly communications, it makes a lot more sense for scholars to retain copyright of OA published works and to make more nuanced declarations around acceptable use and re-use of their works.”
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Randall Martin, Killam Professor
“I publish in open access journals because they are easily available to a broad audience, increasing the accessibility of our research,” says Dr. Martin. When considering an open access journal to publish in, he looks at the focus area of the journal, the readership, and its reputation.
“For many readers, the discoverability of individual articles is an important factor,” he says. There are somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 science articles published each day, a staggering number for any reader to get through.
“Open access publications are worth serious consideration as a way to increase visibility,” says Dr. Martin.
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