Étiquette : open access

Catégories
Non classé

The Accessibility Quotient A New Measure of Open…

The Accessibility Quotient: A New Measure of Open Access :

« INTRODUCTION: The Accessibility Quotient (AQ), a new measure for assisting authors and librarians in assessing and characterizing the degree of accessibility for a group of papers, is proposed and described. The AQ offers a concise measure that assesses the accessibility of peer-reviewed research produced by an individual or group, by incorporating data on open availability to readers worldwide, the degree of financial barrier to access, and journal quality. The paper reports on the context for developing this measure, how the AQ is calculated, how it can be used in faculty outreach, and why it is a useful lens to use in assessing progress towards more open access to research.

METHODS: Journal articles published in 2009 and 2010 by faculty members from one department in each of MIT’s five schools were examined. The AQ was calculated using economist Ted Bergstrom’s Relative Price Index to assess affordability and quality, and data from SHERPA/RoMEO to assess the right to share the peer-reviewed version of an article.

RESULTS: The results show that 2009 and 2010 publications by the Media Lab and Physics have the potential to be more open than those of Sloan (Management), Mechanical Engineering, and Linguistics & Philosophy.

DISCUSSION: Appropriate interpretation and applications of the AQ are discussed and some limitations of the measure are examined, with suggestions for future studies which may improve the accuracy and relevance of the AQ.

CONCLUSION: The AQ offers a concise assessment of accessibility for authors, departments, disciplines, or universities who wish to characterize or understand the degree of access to their research output, capturing additional dimensions of accessibility that matter to faculty. »

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/7/

Catégories
Non classé

Does Tenure Matter Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to…

Does Tenure Matter? Factors Influencing Faculty Contributions to Institutional Repositories :

« INTRODUCTION : Institutional repositories (IRs) provide colleges and universities a way to ensure stability of access to and dissemination of digital scholarly communications. Yet, many institutions report that faculty willingness to contribute to IRs is often limited. This study investigates faculty attitudes about IR contributions by tenure status and category of material.

IMETHODS: Two focus group interviews were conducted in the spring of 2009 among English department faculty at a large Midwestern university. One group consisted of tenured faculty and the other of tenure-track and adjunct faculty.

IRESULTS: Both groups recognize the benefit of open access to research materials but expressed concern about their intellectual property rights. Untenured faculty spoke more about nonprint research. Both groups also shared concerns about contributing instructional materials, primarily in regard to plagiarism and outdated materials. In regard to faculty service, the tenured group discussed many items they would contribute, while the untenured faculty mentioned very little.

IDISCUSSION: Some minor differences emerged related to experience and tenure status in regard to contributing research and instructional artifacts, but the major variation was the strong support tenured participants gave for contributing service items, compared to the untenured faculty, who did not view this category positively. Tenured faculty viewed the IR as a way to document their own service activities, investigate those of colleagues, and had fewer concerns about plagiarism or other negative effects in the service category.

CONCLUSION: Promoting faculty contribution of service-related items to an IR may be a way to encourage larger numbers to participate. »

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/8/

Catégories
EN

Open Access Publishing Practices in a Complex Environment: Conditions, Barriers, and Bases of Power

The system of scholarly communication is a complex environment made up of various stakeholders including not only researchers, librarians, and publishers, but also academic administrators. This paper examines conditions each group faces while also noting barriers preventing movement toward open access.

To further analyze interrelationships and interdependencies among groups, a discussion is presented using French & Raven’s bases of power to describe how members of each stakeholder group exert some degree of power upon all other groups while at the same time being influenced, either directly or indirectly, by external forces.

A better understanding of the many existing interactions and dependencies can help those who work within this system navigate ongoing changes while more successfully positioning their organizations for the future.

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/10/

Catégories
EN

Lasting Impact: Sustainability of Disciplinary Repositories

Librarians need to be familiar with the evolving aspects of scholarly communication and the changing scholarly record. One component of that is the role of repositories. It’s crucial for anyone working in a research library to understand the repository landscape, both to advise researchers on where to look for information and how to disseminate their own research articles.

Librarians should appreciate the nature of the leading disciplinary repositories and have a sense of their motivations, their scope, and how they operate. Before getting involved with a disciplinary repository, they should be familiar with the risks and opportunities in depending on the repository and, most importantly, they need to know if the repository has a sustainable model.

For a library considering starting a disciplinary repository or taking on the operation of an existing one, these considerations are essential.

URL : http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2012/2012-03.pdf

Catégories
Non classé

Scientific Utopia I Opening scientific communication Existing…

Scientific Utopia: I. Opening scientific communication :

« Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science – knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the « one article, one journal » model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it. »

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1055

Catégories
Non classé

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations :

« This study was carried out by The Office for Public Management (OPM) in partnership with the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). We were commissioned in July 2011 by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on behalf of the Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) to conduct research into the benefits of open access (OA) to scholarly research outputs to voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/576/

Catégories
Non classé

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector :

« The objective of this project was to synthesise and generate evidence on the benefits that Open Access to scholarly research outputs has generated to the public sector, and to provide case studies of organisations that have realised such benefits. The project considered the benefits of Open Access for researchers in public sector organisations. It did not aim to be comprehensive in its coverage of the public sector, as there are many organisations for which research is only a very small part of their activity, and has only very limited impact on their policies and decisions. We have also focused on Open Access to research articles, as these still make up the largest proportion of research outputs used in analysis, policy and decision-making: research data is becoming more important but is still nascent in its influence in the organisations we surveyed. These organisations in any case often generate their own data through commissioned surveys and other tools as their needs tend to be very specific. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/575/