Perceptions of Educational Leadership Faculty Regarding Open Access Publishing

Authors : Jayson W. Richardson, Scott McLeod, Todd Hurst

There is a dearth of research on the perceptions of faculty members in educational leadership regarding open access publications. This reality may exist because of a lack of funding for educational leadership research, financial obstacles, tenure demands, or reputation concerns.

It may be that there are simply fewer established open access publishers with reputable impact factors to encourage publication by members in the field.

The current study seeks to answer the following question: “What are the perceptions of educational leadership faculty members in UCEA about open access publishing?”

The results are based on responses from 180 faculty members in the field of educational leadership.

URL : Perceptions of Educational Leadership Faculty Regarding Open Access Publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2019v15n5a817

Open Social Scholarship Annotated Bibliography

Authors: Randa El Khatib, Lindsey Seatter, Tracey El Hajj, Conrad Leibel, Alyssa Arbuckle, Ray Siemens, Caroline Winter, the ETCL and INKE Research Groups

This annotated bibliography responds to and contextualizes the growing “Open” movements and recent institutional reorientation towards social, public-facing scholarship.

The aim of this document is to present a working definition of open social scholarship through the aggregation and summation of critical resources in the field. Our work surveys foundational publications, innovative research projects, and global organizations that enact the theories and practices of open social scholarship.

The bibliography builds on the knowledge creation principles outlined in previous research by broadening the focus beyond traditional academic spaces and reinvigorating central, defining themes with recently published research.

URL : Open Social Scholarship Annotated Bibliography

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/kula.58

Motivations for textbook and learning resource publishing: Do academics want to publish OA textbooks?

Authors : Ellen Collins, Graham Stone

The affordability of textbooks and unsustainable commercial models are issues that many libraries face. As an alternative, there is a growing movement in the United States around open and affordable textbooks.

However, to date there has been less activity in the UK despite the introduction of a range of policies that encourage or mandate open access publication of research outputs such as journal articles or monographs.

These policy changes have affected academics’ attitudes to open access, but it is not yet clear whether the opportunity to publish in open access would affect researchers’ propensity to create non-research outputs such as textbooks and learning materials.

In 2017, Jisc Collections proposed a study into author incentives for textbook publishing in order to understand whether open access would motivate authors to publish learning materials and thereby support a transition to open access for e-textbooks.

The study consisted of a survey, focus groups and interviews. This article discusses the results of the research and provides several key insights and future opportunities for those wishing to explore open and affordable textbooks.

URL : Motivations for textbook and learning resource publishing: Do academics want to publish OA textbooks?

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10266

The Development of the Journal Evaluation Tool to Evaluate the Credibility of Publication Venues

Authors : Nataly Blas, Shilpa Rele, Marie R. Kennedy

INTRODUCTION

A shared concern among librarians who work in an academic environment is finding effective mechanisms to help faculty identify suitable publication venues. Determining the suitability is now also complicated by the need to determine the credibility of the venue itself, to ensure that faculty select a venue that is held in esteem.

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT

At Loyola Marymount University (LMU), a medium-sized, private institution in the United States, three librarians developed a tool to assist faculty in determining the credibility of a publication venue, specifically for open access journals.

This article outlines the development of a tool to evaluate journals, the pilot testing process, and some of the measures taken for the promotion, outreach, and implementation of the tool. The goal of the tool is to inform publishing decisions using an objective measure of credibility and to empower authors to make publishing decisions for themselves.

NEXT STEPS

The authors have released the tool with a Creative Commons CC-BY license in order to enable the broad dissemination, use, and enhancement of it by anyone interested in using or developing the tool further.

It will be valuable to understand the adapted use cases of the tool and learn about experiences from other librarians using this tool at their institutions.

URL : The Development of the Journal Evaluation Tool to Evaluate the Credibility of Publication Venues

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2250

Bibliodiversity in Practice: Developing Community-Owned, Open Infrastructures to Unleash Open Access Publishing

Authors : Lucy Barnes, Rupert Gatti

Academic publishing is changing. The drive towards open access publishing, which is being powered in the UK by funding bodies (SHERPA Juliet), the requirements of REFs 2021 (UKRI) and 2027 (Hill 2018), and Europe-wide movements such as the recently-announced Plan S (‘About Plan S’), has the potential to shake up established ways of publishing academic research.

Within book publishing, the traditional print formats and the conventional ways of disseminating research, which are protected and promoted by a small number of powerful incumbents, are being challenged.

Academic publishing, and academic book publishing, is at a crossroads: will it find ways to accommodate open access distribution within its existing structures?

Or will new systems of research dissemination be developed? And what might those new systems look like?In this article we look at the main features of the existing monograph publication and distribution ecosystem, and question the suitability of this for open access monographs.

We look specifically at some of the key economic characteristics of the monograph publishing market and consider their implications for new infrastructures designed specifically to support open access titles.

The key observations are that the production of monographs displays constant returns to scale, and so can (and does) support large numbers of publishing initiatives; at the same time the distribution and discovery systems for monographs display increasing returns to scale and so naturally leads to the emergence of a few large providers.

We argue that in order to protect the diversity of players and outputs within the monograph publishing industry in the transition to open access it is important to create open and community-managed infrastructures and revenue flows that both cater for different business models and production workflows and are resistant to take over or control by a single (or small number) of players.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02175276/

 

The advantages of UK Biobank’s open access strategy for health research

Authors : Megan Conroy, Jonathan Sellors, Mark Effingham, Thomas J. Littlejohns, Chris Boultwood, Lorraine Gillions, Cathie L.M. Sudlow, Rory Collins, Naomi E. Allen

Ready access to health research studies is becoming more important as researchers, and their funders, seek to maximise the opportunities for scientific innovation and health improvements.

Large‐scale population‐based prospective studies are particularly useful for multidisciplinary research into the causes, treatment and prevention of many different diseases. UK Biobank has been established as an open‐access resource for public health research, with the intention of making the data as widely available as possible in an equitable and transparent manner.

Access to UK Biobank’s unique breadth of phenotypic and genetic data has attracted researchers worldwide from across academia and industry. As a consequence, it has enabled scientists to perform world‐leading collaborative research.

Moreover, open access to an already deeply characterized cohort has encouraged both public and private sector investment in further enhancements to make UK Biobank an unparalleled resource for public health research and an exemplar for the development of open access approaches for other studies.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.12955

Plan S in Latin America: A precautionary note

Authors : Humberto Debat​, Dominique Babini

Latin America has historically led a firm and rising Open Access movement and represents the worldwide region with larger adoption of Open Access practices.

Argentina has recently expressed its commitment to join Plan S, an initiative from a European consortium of research funders oriented to mandate Open Access publishing of scientific outputs.

Here we suggest that the potential adhesion of Argentina or other Latin American nations to Plan S, even in its recently revised version, ignores the reality and tradition of Latin American Open Access publishing, and has still to demonstrate that it will encourage at a regional and global level the advancement of non-commercial Open Access initiatives.

URL : Plan S in Latin America: A precautionary note

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27834v2