Faculty Attitudes toward Open Access and Scholarly Communications: Disciplinary Differences on an Urban and Health Science Campus

Authors : Jere Odell, Kristi Palmer, Emily Dill

Access to scholarship in the health sciences has greatly increased in the last decade. The adoption of the 2008 U.S. National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy and the launch of successful open access journals in health sciences have done much to move the exchange of scholarship beyond the subscription-only model.

One might assume, therefore, that scholars publishing in the health sciences would be more supportive of these changes. However, the results of this survey of attitudes on a campus with a large medical faculty show that health science respondents were uncertain of the value of recent changes in the scholarly communication system.

URL : Faculty Attitudes toward Open Access and Scholarly Communications: Disciplinary Differences on an Urban and Health Science Campus

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2169

 

Qui dépose quoi sur Hal-SHS ? Pratiques de dépôts en libre accès en sciences humaines et sociales

Auteurs/Authors : Annaïg Mahé, Camille Prime-Claverie

Hal-SHS est la partie de la plateforme française HAL pour les sciences humaines et sociales où la production scientifique des chercheurs peut être rendue visible par le dépôt de notices de documents, et éventuellement librement accessible par le dépôt de fichiers associés.

Afin de comprendre qui dépose quoi, nous avons moissonné un corpus de 336 160 enregistrements à partir de l’entrepôt OAI de Hal-SHS correspondant aux notices déposées sur la plateforme depuis ses débuts, en 2002, jusqu’à 2016 inclus.

Les analyses statistiques effectuées sur ces données nous ont permis d’observer une forte implication des chercheurs dans l’auto-archivage et des différences disciplinaires qui se traduisent par des logiques de dépôts contrastées (communication scientifique directe, archivage, recensement et référencement).

Au final, l’étude fait apparaître que la plateforme est davantage utilisée en tant qu’outil de mise en visibilité de la production scientifique, avec le texte intégral comme une simple option, différemment appréciée selon les disciplines.

URL : https://rfsic.revues.org/3315

Academics’ behaviors and attitudes towards open access publishing in scholarly journals

Authors : Jennifer Rowley, Frances Johnson, Laura Sbaffi, Will Frass, Elaine Devine

While there is significant progress with policy and a lively debate regarding the potential impact of open access publishing, few studies have examined academics’ behavior and attitudes to open access publishing (OAP) in scholarly journals.

This article seeks to address this gap through an international and interdisciplinary survey of academics. Issues covered include: use of and intentions regarding OAP, and perceptions regarding advantages and disadvantages of OAP, journal article publication services, peer review, and reuse.

Despite reporting engagement in OAP, academics were unsure about their future intentions regarding OAP. Broadly, academics identified the potential for wider circulation as the key advantage of OAP, and were more positive about its benefits than they were negative about its disadvantages. As regards services, rigorous peer review, followed by rapid publication were most valued.

Academics reported strong views on reuse of their work; they were relatively happy with noncommercial reuse, but not in favor of commercial reuse, adaptations, and inclusion in anthologies. Comparing science, technology, and medicine with arts, humanities, and social sciences showed a significant difference in attitude on a number of questions, but, in general, the effect size was small, suggesting that attitudes are relatively consistent across the academic community.

URL : http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/114578/

Against capital

Author : Stuart Lawson

The ways in which scholars exchange and share their work have evolved through pragmatic responses to the political and economic contexts in which they are embedded.

So rather than being designed to fulfil their function in an optimal way, our methods of scholarly communication have been distorted by the interests of capital and by neoliberal logic.

If these two interlinked political forces – that suffuse all aspects of our lives – are the reason for the mess we are currently in, then surely any alternative scholarly communication system we create should be working against them, not with them. The influence of capital in scholarly publishing, and the overwhelming force of neoliberalism in our working practices, is the problem.

So when the new ‘innovative disrupters’ are fully aligned with the political forces that need to be dismantled, it is questionable that the new way of doing things is a significant improvement.

URL : http://stuartlawson.org/2017/07/against-capital/

 

Searching Data: A Review of Observational Data Retrieval Practices

Authors : Kathleen Gregory, Paul Groth, Helena Cousijn, Andrea Scharnhorst, Sally Wyatt

A cross-disciplinary examination of the user behaviours involved in seeking and evaluating data is surprisingly absent from the research data discussion. This review explores the data retrieval literature to identify commonalities in how users search for and evaluate observational research data.

Two analytical frameworks rooted in information retrieval and science technology studies are used to identify key similarities in practices as a first step toward developing a model describing data retrieval.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06937

 

Open Access and Promotion and Tenure Evaluation Plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

Authors : Stephanie H. Wical, Gregory J. Kocken

Department and program evaluation plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire were examined to see if these documents provide evidence that could be used to justify supporting the publication of peer-reviewed open access articles toward tenure and promotion.

In an earlier study, the authors reveal that faculty members at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire are more unaware of open access publishing than their counterparts at larger universities.

These findings dovetail with other studies that show that faculty members are reluctant to publish in open access journals because of concerns about the quality of those journals. The existing body of scholarship suggests that tenure-line faculty fear publishing in open access journals because it could adversely impact their chances of promotion and tenure.

The authors of this current study sought to determine if department and program evaluation plans could influence negative perceptions faculty have of open access journals. The implications of this study for librarians, scholarly communication professionals, tenure-line faculty, departments, and programs are addressed.

URL : Open Access and Promotion and Tenure Evaluation Plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2017.1313024