A Curious View of the World » open access

Concordia University embraces open access

Bruce — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:02:39 +0000

Concordia University announced this week that it is adopting an open access policy for its research. According to the University’s press release, librarians played an essential leadership role in this policy:

Gerald Beasley, Concordia’s University Librarian, was instrumental in the campus-wide dialogue on open access that began more than a year ago. “I am delighted that Senate voted to support the recommendations of all four Faculty Councils and the Council of the School of Graduate Studies. There are only a handful of precedents in North America for the kind of leadership that Concordia faculty have demonstrated by their determination to make publicly-funded research available to all rather than just the minority able to afford the rapidly rising subscription costs of scholarly databases, books and journals.”

Further, the university has launched an institutional repository service called Spectrum. At present, it has approximately six thousand dissertations available. The repository is maintained and operated by the library. In reading the Spectrum Frequently Asked Questions, I also came across this statement explaining how open access improves research impact. This is an excellent point to raise as this is an important concern for many researchers.

Question: How does depositing in Spectrum increase research impact?

Research repositories benefit faculty members by bringing about broader dissemination, increased use and enhanced professional visibility of their scholarly research.

When work reaches a wider audience, it often leads to an increase in citations. According to Peter Suber, open access to research publications increases the audience for a work far beyond the audience of any priced journal, even the most prestigious or popular journal. Studies in many fields show a correlation between open access and citation-count increases from 50% to 250%. See this Open Access Citation bibliography.

Congratulations Concordia!

Harvard Business School Adopts Open Access

Bruce — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:29:03 +0000

In February, the faculty of Harvard Business School voted to adopt an open access policy for its research. In terms of scholarly communication, I regard this as a significant shift. From what I understand of the progress of the open access movement, it has been adopted in the sciences (especially medical and life sciences) community to the greatest degree. In browsing the website of the Office of Scholarly Communication and the Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) Repository, I found only one article from the Business School, but the policy has only been in effect a month. Many other universities that adopted open access four or five years ago are still in the process of implementing it – open access is important but it can be time consuming to fully implement. As one of the world’s leading centres of business and management research, I expect that this will be a fascinating resource.

University of Ottawa adopts open access

Bruce — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:53:37 +0000

The University of Ottawa has announced support for open access. What I most interesting is the strategy and resources the university has put into this resource. For example, authors at the university can request funds from an author’s fund; in some open access science journals, authors have to pay several thousand dollars to submit an article to cover editorial costs. The level of support presented in this strategy is promising and I hope that other institutions consider following this model.

The tagline for open access is: Visibility and impact for your research. Well put! I imagine that would be important in persuading faculty and graduate students to embrace the policy. You can also see the perspective of Michael Geist on the policy; he is a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

Open Access Week, October 19-23

Bruce — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:35:49 +0000

Welcome to Open Access Week (October 19-23, 2009). Open access is a philosophy that I am passionate about. While I have had the privilege of access to Canada’s largest libraries (the Toronto Public Library – the largest public library in the country and the University of Toronto, the largest Canadian library by number of items), not all have that access. As a high school student, accessing resources in research libraries was a difficult task that few pursued (one could borrow items from the local University library but for each borrow request, I had to get a letter from the high school librarian vouching for me).

Now, you can have a look at the Directory of Open Access Journals and find articles from a variety of fields. The physical and medical sciences have embraced the principles of open access to the greatest degree, but there are other disciplines as well. I hope this trend continues and that more researchers see fit to contribute to it. One question that open access advocates do not seem to consider is how the open access movement impacts those industries that depend on intellectual property (e.g. movies, film, pharmaceuticals, software, engineering, law, investment and the rest of the creative economy) protections. Figuring out a way to balance the open access ethic with the legitimate desire of creators to profit from their work has long been a thorny question in copyright. Part of the value of open access lies in rebalancing the debate more evenly.

York University Adopts Open Access Policy for Librarians and Archivists

Bruce — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:56:29 +0000

York University has distinguished itself as a leader in the open access arena by proclaiming that all articles, books and other scholarly communications produced by librarians and archivists there will be available on an open access basis. I know and respect several librarians at York University and this increases my respect for them even further. The policy was passed on October 1 of this year and it will be evaluated again in a year.

My impression is that Canadian universities, as a whole, are lagging behind their American counterparts in adopting open access (I’ve blogged previously about the Ivy League Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity). However, I get the sense that the gap is smaller here than in social media where many institutions in Canada were years behind the United States. Indeed, fellow library blogger Heather Morrison has written about Canadian leadership in open access movement compiled a great list of open access news and announcements from across Canada that is worth a look. For information professionals working in education, this is an area for us to lead both in advocating for its value (e.g. scientific research becomes available to all who want it) and showing how to implement it.

To underscore the importance of open access, I am making my Master’s thesis, “The Role of Civil Society Organizations in the Net Neutrality Debate in Canada and the United States,” will be available on an open access basis through the University of Toronto TSpace depository at the end of November. Further details on how to access it will be posted it when it goes online.